39 Quotes by Chesa Boudin

In any campaign you make a lot of promises and you talk about a wide range of issues. When you're elected, the work of accomplishing those goals has to be sequenced. You can't do everything at once.

Local prosecutors must use the power and discretion afforded them to carry out sweeping reforms that will protect the public - especially Black communities - from police violence. Our system's integrity depends on it.

What we're doing in San Francisco and what we're doing with other criminal justice partners across the state and across the country is anything but indiscriminate. We are being careful. We are being focused and surgical in our efforts to decrease the jail population.

Homelessness, open air drug use and mental illness - which we all see in this city - are things we've been relying on the DA's office and the jails to deal with. That's really expensive, inhumane and ineffective.

All it takes is a single person coming into or going out of the jail or prison with COVID-19, and the entire jail will likely be infected. Most jails have people living in very close quarters.

In San Francisco, I am proud to say that one of my first mandates as district attorney was that my staff would never ask the court to impose money bail. If we believe someone is too dangerous to be released, then it doesn't matter how wealthy they are - we should ask the court to detain them.

When my parents were arrested, I was a year old. And like so many children with incarcerated parents, I experienced a range of traumas connected to the separation. I was angry. I was ashamed. I had developmental delays, behavioral problems.

My parents are all people who have taken a stand for what they believe in over and over again. That to me is a fine example - even if I disagreed with some of their choices.

My family taught me radical politics from the beginning, but I also learned to prove myself in elite institutions.