By Erinn Broadus
Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco District Attorney recalled last year over criminal justice policies perceived as soft on crime, is now teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, according to The New York Times.
Boudin’s tenure as district attorney was cut short when 60% of voters approved a recall over the crime he allowed to fester on San Francisco streets. Boudin will now serve as founding executive director of the new Criminal Law and Justice Center at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law, according to the New York Times.
Boudin was widely criticized for refusing to prosecute many lower-level offenders, and several prosecutors from his own office joined the recall effort, Politico reported. Homicides also rose under his watch, and public outcry over brazen shoplifting by business owners contributed to his recall.
Boudin’s new job is not limited to just teaching; it involves researching and advocating on behalf of new laws in California.
“It’s a job that’s going to allow me to draw on the lived experience I had visiting my parents in prison for a combined 63 years, and the practical professional experience I had both as a public defender and elected district attorney in San Francisco,” Boudin told the New York Times. Since his departure, city officials have tried to deter crime, including a proposal to remove illegal immigrants from sanctuary status if they are convicted of distributing fentanyl.
Boudin and his successor, Brooke Jenkins, have already disagreed on several issues, including the prosecution of two police officers over on-duty shootings; Jenkins later dropped the charges, and claimed they were politically motivated, The New York Times reported.
“I campaigned on that issue,” Boudin said. “It was what voters wanted.”
Boudin might advocate on behalf of issues he has always cared deeply about, like the overhaul of bail laws, in his new role, the New York Times reported. “That’s an issue I have worked on for many, many years,” he said.
In a press release distributed by the University of California, Berkeley, about Boudin’s new role, the university emphasized his past experiences with incarceration, and the four cornerstones he envisions for the program: policy advocacy, research, an annual conference, and education.
“A lifetime of visiting my biological parents in prison and my work as a public defender and district attorney have made clear that our system fails to keep communities safe and fails to treat them equitably,” he said in the press release.
The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law did not immediately respond to Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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