39 Quotes by Chesa Boudin

We need to do a better job identifying what's contributing to the crime and making sure we hold people accountable in a way that addresses that root cause.

Stop and frisk - whether done while walking down the street or while driving a car - is a civil rights violation.

I don't expect to ever put my family background to rest but I do expect to be taken seriously as a scholar, a writer and a Latin Americanist on my own terms, not defined through my parents and their history or politics.

Because like so many people who were victimized directly or indirectly by crime, I blamed myself. If I hadn't been able to find closure, I never would have overcome those early developmental challenges.

The status quo tough-on-crime policies of the '90s and 2000s are not working and are not popular. And it provides me with hope about the possibilities for San Francisco and this whole country in terms of moving away from our dependence on prisons and jails to solve social problems.

We should start with the basics: Police officers are unlikely to be held accountable if the prosecutors investigating and potentially prosecuting them feel indebted to them.

My mother negotiated a plea deal, and my father went to trial. I think one thing we notice in their case that kind of stands out is how, in some ways, arbitrary the outcomes in the criminal justice system can be. And they did basically the same thing, identical thing.

Different victims, different survivors of different crimes will choose to pursue different paths. And hopefully, over time, we can collectively transform our culture into one that prioritizes healing and prevention instead of simply focusing on punishment.

By incarcerating someone who is homeless or addicted or who suffers from mental health challenges, we only further destabilize that person and create situations where they are more likely to commit crimes in the future.