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Commentary By Hannah E. Meyers

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Shaky Ground? Liberal San Franciscans Oust Chesa Boudin

Public Safety Policing, Crime Control

Last Tuesday evening, Chesa Boudin stood on a breezy San Francisco dais to make his concession speech. San Franciscans voted by a wide margin to recall Boudin from his role as District Attorney, which he assumed in January 2020.  

Boudin’s recall will be a shot heard in local prosecutors’ offices around the country. He represented – loudly and proudly—a progressive attitude toward his role, one that explicitly defined justice itself as diminishing the number of individuals facing prosecution and incarceration and reducing the number of anti-social activities that are even considered crimes. In his triumphal-sounding farewell, he rattled off his administration’s greatest wins: 50% fewer juvenile offenders incarcerated, 40% fewer adult offenders, and a 30% drop in the state prison population.  

These might be achievements in other contexts—perhaps if they were being touted by a nonprofit organization or a defense attorneys’ association. But they’re not achievements coming from a DA. They stand in direct opposition to the traditional role of a district attorney, which requires upholding justice by representing the people against individuals who break laws – all of whom, to one degree or another, have singular or collective victims.

Continue reading here at John Kass News

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Hannah Meyers is director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute.

This piece originally appeared in John Kass News