7 ms·

Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

90 points by crhulls 4y ago

cato_the_elder 4y ago
Archived version: https://archive.ph/dmlE8 https://archive.ph/dmlE8
crhulls 4y ago
[flagged]
- tptacek 4y ago
  As I understand it, Boudin barely eked out a win to begin with. Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville. Philly overwhelmingly reelected its progressive prosecutor. There's something to be said for the idea that, ideology aside, you also just have to seem good at the actual job; the job is not simply a series of policy positions, but also a bunch of real management work. The rap on Boudin is that he did not seem good at the actual job. So, no, I doubt it. I don't know what you mean by "the far left" though. The actual far left doesn't re-examine its positions by design, just like the actual far-right. If you mean "the Democratic party", it was never as sold on prison abolition as Twitter would have had you believe. There's still a lot of room --- and actual bipartisan support! --- for CJ reform in US politics.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > There's still a lot of room --- and actual bipartisan support! --- for CJ reform in US politics To expand on this: there are legions of non-violent, opportunistic crimes that put young Americans in jail only to release them years later unskilled, difficult to hire and possibly disenfranchised. At the same time, hosts of violent crimes carry relatively short sentences with no attempts at rehabilitation. And all sorts of society-corroding, sociopathic white-collar crime goes unnoticed by a justice system overloaded by the first group. Reducing penalties on the former, honing focus on the second and creating an enforcement mechanism for the latter finds bipartisan support (first two play on separate sides of the aisle for a bargain; the last has populist appeal in both camps).
    - Ferrotin 4y ago
      What non-violent opportunistic crimes are putting young Americans in jail? Theft? Is there bipartisan support for reducing its penalties? Or do you mean some other one? I can see bipartisan support for reducing penalties for victimless, non-oppotunistic crimes, like drug use.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > What non-violent opportunistic crimes are putting young Americans in jail? Low level, non-violent drug offenses are the low-hanging fruit [1]. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1013 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/101...
        rahimnathwani 4y ago
        The crimes listed at that link are making, selling, importing and exporting drugs. How are these 'opportunistic'? All of them require planning.
        turtledove 4y ago
        You have a very rose colored view of the world. Some folks are presented with an opportunity to sell (or be an accessory to the sale) and the deal is too good to pass up because the alternative is starving.
        rahimnathwani 4y ago
        "You have a very rose colored view of the world." Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. But I'd prefer we discuss the issue than my general view of the world. Let's take your scenario: someone is on the brink of starvation, and an opportunity to sell drugs (and not starve) falls in their lap. They take it (without any prior plan). This is definitely opportunistic. What happens if the above situation is repeated a second time? Do we consider that opportunistic as well? How many times does someone have to take such an opportunity before we consider them selling drugs as being 'what they do' or part of their plan? Unless the chance of being arrested is close to 100%, it's unlikely that someone's first arrest for selling drugs coincides with the first time they sold drugs. So is it really opportunistic?
  - nwah1 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - aldonius 4y ago
    > Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville. Well yeah, SF's visibility comes because it's the original centre of what is now a much bigger area.
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    Philly is now setting murder records and has the second-worst per-capita murder rate among large cities. And the DA's office is seeing an unprecedented exodus of staff, with many of Krasner's hires among them. Oh, and congresswomen are being carjacked in broad daylight. It seems like Krasner just lucked out on the timing of his reelection bid, as during the democratic primary the scope of the problem was not yet apparent. I bet Philly wishes they had a California-like recall mechanism right about now. https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/exodus-261-philadelphia-prosecutors-quit-under-larry-krasner/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/exodus-261-philadelphi...
- DiabloD3 4y ago
  - vwoolf 4y ago
    housing the homeless SF and the Bay Area have been preventing housing creation for decades: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/, to the point that average SF rent is $3700/month: https://bungalow.com/articles/what-is-the-real-cost-of-living-in-san-francisco-ca https://bungalow.com/articles/what-is-the-real-cost-of-livin.... The Bay Area is more politically left than anywhere else in the U.S.
    - DiabloD3 4y ago
      The Bay Area, from what I can tell, has a lot of faux-left people actually running the show. People who are actually left and not centrist have been pushing for some sort of rent/landlord reform for decades, and the landlords have enough money to continue resisting and probably will do so for quite some time. I'm glad I don't live there, tbh, SF sounds like a boring version of the nightmare futures written about in dystopian fiction.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    When you're writing things like "you're part of the problem", you've departed from the norms of this place. There's a place for that kind of advocacy, but it's not HN; we're here for curious conversation. Even some people ordinarily inclined to agree with you will recoil from this kind of rhetoric here.
    - DiabloD3 4y ago
      - tptacek 4y ago
        There's a button for that. Don't crud up the threads with more of the same.
- fatjokes 4y ago
  When the school board members got recalled they blamed it on Asians Uncle Tom-ing to white supremacists. So, no, I don't think they'll re-examine anything. I'd love to be wrong though.
- ikiris 4y ago
  - jrndndjnd 4y ago
    Many of the violent criminals Chesa freed would be arrested in any other nation. Chesa is definitely "far left" on crime
    - ryanobjc 4y ago
      Who is that exactly? Which persons. Please substantiate your claims.
    - adastra22 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - friedman23 4y ago
        The fact that you referred to him as she just shows you have no idea who you are talking about. Chesa was literally raised by communist terrorists. I don't use either of those words lightly.
      - jrndndjnd 4y ago
        Chesa is a "he". Among district attorneys, he is "far left"
        adastra22 4y ago
        Thank you. Typo fixed.
  - crhulls 4y ago
    I’m curious how many people would agree with this comment. If Chesa and his policies are not considered far left, who/what is? It seems that his polices were on the extreme end of the progressive spectrum, and that both his supporters and critics would agree with that statement.
- Fatnino 4y ago
  Chesa being thrown out on his ear just means a slightly more moderate liberal will be installed in his place. Your belief that this represents a swing to the republican party is outlandish and deranged. This is San Francisco we're talking about.
  - khuey 4y ago
    Yes. Meanwhile across the bay in Alameda County the criminal justice reform candidates are doing quite well.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      Coincidentally, crime rates in Alameda County are anecdotally only getting worse. I've never seen it as bad as it is now, in terms of blatant property theft, armed robberies, and mentally deranged homeless.
- tayo42 4y ago
  Maybe I'm misrembering I thought he won because of a weird results from the ranked choice voting
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 4y ago
  You don't know SF politics if you think people here are going to start voting in Republicans.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > Chesa represents what I believe will be a self-inflicted shift to the Republican Party by many moderate and formerly left wing voters. It won't change much locally beyond the Democrats that win being one notch closer to moderate. Nationally, it feeds a narrative Republicans will push about how this is what the most progressive policies in the country will get you, then re-air the video of people shooting up in the Civic Center BART station.
georgia_peach 4y ago
Looks like having a DA raised by Weather Underground was too much, even for San Francisco: "Boudin fell in love with David Gilbert in the 1970s and gave birth to their son Chesa in 1980. When her son was 14 months old, she was arrested and subsequently incarcerated for murder and bank robbery. Her son was raised by former Weatherman leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 4y ago
  It is disingenuous to say Weather Underground had anything to do with this recall. San Francisco voters knew of his parents' background back in 2019, and still gave him a chance. Ultimately he was kicked out due to his performance (or lack thereof).
  - georgia_peach 4y ago
    If I were raised by people who had their justifications for "murder and bank robbery," I would also find it difficult to get my hackles up over shoplifters at the Walgreens. Apparently, the voters of SF had a lower tolerance for such things. It is not "disingenuous" to attribute his recall to WU. It is common sense. https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/shoplifters-walking-into-stores-filling-bags-walking-out-of-stores-in-san-francisco-criminal-justice-reform/ https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/shoplifters-walking-into...
- rvieira 4y ago
  Children often grow up to hold opposite political views from their parents/guardians as a form of rebellion, so it's not that linear. A (ethical) social experiment can be made by looking at siblings later in life (e.g. the Hitchens brothers).
  - georgia_peach 4y ago
    You are talking politics--the domain of public policy--where people often disagree on the means, while being mostly in agreement on the ends. I am talking value systems--regarding lawlessness as a tool rather than a dysfunction. Regardless of one's politics, I suspect most people are offended by the idea of using lawlessness in this way--as evidenced by his brief tenure. Basketball for example: Say the fans see a player traveling. The referee also sees it, but does nothing. How will the fans react? Value systems. Rules are there to be enforced. People get pissed off when the rules aren't enforced, or enforced inconsistently. I think it goes without saying that apples occasionally fall far from the tree... occasionally.
ren_engineer 4y ago
>Crime overall has fallen since Mr. Boudin took office in January 2020 lol, that's pretty easy to do when you just stop prosecuting people. Same way graduation rates increase if you just stop failing people. Who cares about the actual purpose of institutions or whether goals are being achieved, just make sure the numbers are what we want https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1533544746173571079 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1533544746173571079
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rajup 4y ago
  > lol, that's pretty easy to do when you just stop prosecuting people. Same way graduation rates increase if you just stop failing people. Or the way COVID cases drop when you stop testing!
- mrtksn 4y ago
  This can't be simple as a corrupt or lazy prosecutor, right? What is the full story here?
  - usrn 4y ago
    A prosecutor who was captured by ideology.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      care to expand on that?
      - ardit33 4y ago
        DA parents were domestic terrorists jailed or murder (google it) So he was raised with parents in jail and became a defendant attorney. He took power he took revenge on the system and people by stopping prosecuting people in the name of social justice, and letting crime run rampant. Straight out of a Batman movie, just in real life there is no Batman to save SF. People had enough and are revolting against this lying lunatic. Good riddance.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sydthrowaway 4y ago
SFPD is rotten to the core and need to be recalled.
etaioinshrdlu 4y ago
I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?
- ryanobjc 4y ago
  Can you explain why you want to do the other thing, when the results aren't really working?
- jacobolus 4y ago
  It’s a gross abuse of the recall process. Recalls should be reserved for flagrant abuses of power, egregious ethical lapses, or profound incompetence. If voters are just unhappy with an elected official, they should follow the normal election process. The SF DA is up for a routine election in November of 2023. Turning recalls into a routine part of politics, where billionaire-backed activists can try to dump a bunch of money into advertising and redo every election they didn’t like the outcome of, in low-turnout primaries or special elections, ends up costing the city a fortune and distorting the ordinary political process.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - native_samples 4y ago
    Presumably the people who voted for the recall believe he's guilty of all three of those. Certainly, a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute criminals could be described as engaging in profound incompetence. It's hard to get worse at doing your job than outright refusing to do it.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  I didn't really know anything about him beyond all the media the last year calling him the "Progressive DA in San Francisco" ... and then I read his wikipedia page and WEW. I'm genuinely gobsmacked that a) people are surprised he behaved the way he did as DA and b) that some actually thought it was a good idea to elect a communist as chief law enforcement officer. Maybe don't do that? In any case, this is a rare but good story about democracy's fail safe mechanisms kicking in.
anonAndOn 4y ago
Tomorrow's headline: Prosecution reform disappears following hundreds of catalytic converters
drewbug01 4y ago
I’m saddened that - as a society - we can’t seem to get away from the idea that the answer to crime is to “be tough on crime.” This recall seems to be an expression of our basic urge to punish, rather than any real desire to address the problems that lie at the root of most crime. We’ve tried the “tough on crime” approach for so many years, and all it’s really done is inflate the prison population (with mostly non-white people, at that). Hopefully someday we can break the cycle and make real changes that will (in time) reduce crime by addressing the sources of the problem in the first place.
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  What is "the root of most crime"? What should society do with criminals instead?
  - drewbug01 4y ago
    I suppose it's better to say "roots," plural. Nobody knows what lies at the roots of crime for _certain_, but there has been a lot of research into the topic. Several things seem to be strongly correlated with increased risk for criminal behavior, but we can't draw direct causality relationships quite yet. The Wikipedia article on it is informative, and viewpoint-neutral: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_criminal_behaviour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_cr... One of the more interesting possible roots of criminal behavior is lead exposure as a child. It's not entirely clear, of course (socioeconomic status is a confounding factor that is hard to eliminate), but there seems to at least be some strong correlation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis My point isn't that we should be redirecting more resources to lead removal than to recalling a prosecutor (even though I _do_ think lead removal is a wise use of resources). My point is that deterrence and punishment is "cleaning up after the fact," rather than trying to address problems at their source. The question "what should society do with criminals" implies a belief that criminality _must_ exist in a society. Perhaps to some degree, it is true. But it seems as though redirecting our efforts to prevent criminality in the first place by addressing the underlying root causes would ultimately be a far better use of our resources, and far more effective.

90 points by crhulls 4y ago

cato_the_elder 4y ago

Archived version: https://archive.ph/dmlE8 https://archive.ph/dmlE8

crhulls 4y ago

[flagged]

tptacek 4y ago
As I understand it, Boudin barely eked out a win to begin with. Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville. Philly overwhelmingly reelected its progressive prosecutor. There's something to be said for the idea that, ideology aside, you also just have to seem good at the actual job; the job is not simply a series of policy positions, but also a bunch of real management work. The rap on Boudin is that he did not seem good at the actual job. So, no, I doubt it. I don't know what you mean by "the far left" though. The actual far left doesn't re-examine its positions by design, just like the actual far-right. If you mean "the Democratic party", it was never as sold on prison abolition as Twitter would have had you believe. There's still a lot of room --- and actual bipartisan support! --- for CJ reform in US politics.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > There's still a lot of room --- and actual bipartisan support! --- for CJ reform in US politics To expand on this: there are legions of non-violent, opportunistic crimes that put young Americans in jail only to release them years later unskilled, difficult to hire and possibly disenfranchised. At the same time, hosts of violent crimes carry relatively short sentences with no attempts at rehabilitation. And all sorts of society-corroding, sociopathic white-collar crime goes unnoticed by a justice system overloaded by the first group. Reducing penalties on the former, honing focus on the second and creating an enforcement mechanism for the latter finds bipartisan support (first two play on separate sides of the aisle for a bargain; the last has populist appeal in both camps).
  - Ferrotin 4y ago
    What non-violent opportunistic crimes are putting young Americans in jail? Theft? Is there bipartisan support for reducing its penalties? Or do you mean some other one? I can see bipartisan support for reducing penalties for victimless, non-oppotunistic crimes, like drug use.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > What non-violent opportunistic crimes are putting young Americans in jail? Low level, non-violent drug offenses are the low-hanging fruit [1]. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1013 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/101...
      - rahimnathwani 4y ago
        The crimes listed at that link are making, selling, importing and exporting drugs. How are these 'opportunistic'? All of them require planning.
        turtledove 4y ago
        You have a very rose colored view of the world. Some folks are presented with an opportunity to sell (or be an accessory to the sale) and the deal is too good to pass up because the alternative is starving.
        rahimnathwani 4y ago
        "You have a very rose colored view of the world." Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. But I'd prefer we discuss the issue than my general view of the world. Let's take your scenario: someone is on the brink of starvation, and an opportunity to sell drugs (and not starve) falls in their lap. They take it (without any prior plan). This is definitely opportunistic. What happens if the above situation is repeated a second time? Do we consider that opportunistic as well? How many times does someone have to take such an opportunity before we consider them selling drugs as being 'what they do' or part of their plan? Unless the chance of being arrested is close to 100%, it's unlikely that someone's first arrest for selling drugs coincides with the first time they sold drugs. So is it really opportunistic?
- nwah1 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- aldonius 4y ago
  > Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville. Well yeah, SF's visibility comes because it's the original centre of what is now a much bigger area.
- pseudo0 4y ago
  Philly is now setting murder records and has the second-worst per-capita murder rate among large cities. And the DA's office is seeing an unprecedented exodus of staff, with many of Krasner's hires among them. Oh, and congresswomen are being carjacked in broad daylight. It seems like Krasner just lucked out on the timing of his reelection bid, as during the democratic primary the scope of the problem was not yet apparent. I bet Philly wishes they had a California-like recall mechanism right about now. https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/exodus-261-philadelphia-prosecutors-quit-under-larry-krasner/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/exodus-261-philadelphi...
DiabloD3 4y ago
- vwoolf 4y ago
  housing the homeless SF and the Bay Area have been preventing housing creation for decades: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/, to the point that average SF rent is $3700/month: https://bungalow.com/articles/what-is-the-real-cost-of-living-in-san-francisco-ca https://bungalow.com/articles/what-is-the-real-cost-of-livin.... The Bay Area is more politically left than anywhere else in the U.S.
  - DiabloD3 4y ago
    The Bay Area, from what I can tell, has a lot of faux-left people actually running the show. People who are actually left and not centrist have been pushing for some sort of rent/landlord reform for decades, and the landlords have enough money to continue resisting and probably will do so for quite some time. I'm glad I don't live there, tbh, SF sounds like a boring version of the nightmare futures written about in dystopian fiction.
- tptacek 4y ago
  When you're writing things like "you're part of the problem", you've departed from the norms of this place. There's a place for that kind of advocacy, but it's not HN; we're here for curious conversation. Even some people ordinarily inclined to agree with you will recoil from this kind of rhetoric here.
  - DiabloD3 4y ago
    - tptacek 4y ago
      There's a button for that. Don't crud up the threads with more of the same.
fatjokes 4y ago
When the school board members got recalled they blamed it on Asians Uncle Tom-ing to white supremacists. So, no, I don't think they'll re-examine anything. I'd love to be wrong though.
ikiris 4y ago
- jrndndjnd 4y ago
  Many of the violent criminals Chesa freed would be arrested in any other nation. Chesa is definitely "far left" on crime
  - ryanobjc 4y ago
    Who is that exactly? Which persons. Please substantiate your claims.
  - adastra22 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - friedman23 4y ago
      The fact that you referred to him as she just shows you have no idea who you are talking about. Chesa was literally raised by communist terrorists. I don't use either of those words lightly.
    - jrndndjnd 4y ago
      Chesa is a "he". Among district attorneys, he is "far left"
      - adastra22 4y ago
        Thank you. Typo fixed.
- crhulls 4y ago
  I’m curious how many people would agree with this comment. If Chesa and his policies are not considered far left, who/what is? It seems that his polices were on the extreme end of the progressive spectrum, and that both his supporters and critics would agree with that statement.
Fatnino 4y ago
Chesa being thrown out on his ear just means a slightly more moderate liberal will be installed in his place. Your belief that this represents a swing to the republican party is outlandish and deranged. This is San Francisco we're talking about.
- khuey 4y ago
  Yes. Meanwhile across the bay in Alameda County the criminal justice reform candidates are doing quite well.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    Coincidentally, crime rates in Alameda County are anecdotally only getting worse. I've never seen it as bad as it is now, in terms of blatant property theft, armed robberies, and mentally deranged homeless.
tayo42 4y ago
Maybe I'm misrembering I thought he won because of a weird results from the ranked choice voting
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paxys 4y ago
You don't know SF politics if you think people here are going to start voting in Republicans.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dehrmann 4y ago
> Chesa represents what I believe will be a self-inflicted shift to the Republican Party by many moderate and formerly left wing voters. It won't change much locally beyond the Democrats that win being one notch closer to moderate. Nationally, it feeds a narrative Republicans will push about how this is what the most progressive policies in the country will get you, then re-air the video of people shooting up in the Civic Center BART station.

georgia_peach 4y ago

Looks like having a DA raised by Weather Underground was too much, even for San Francisco: "Boudin fell in love with David Gilbert in the 1970s and gave birth to their son Chesa in 1980. When her son was 14 months old, she was arrested and subsequently incarcerated for murder and bank robbery. Her son was raised by former Weatherman leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn."

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paxys 4y ago
It is disingenuous to say Weather Underground had anything to do with this recall. San Francisco voters knew of his parents' background back in 2019, and still gave him a chance. Ultimately he was kicked out due to his performance (or lack thereof).
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  If I were raised by people who had their justifications for "murder and bank robbery," I would also find it difficult to get my hackles up over shoplifters at the Walgreens. Apparently, the voters of SF had a lower tolerance for such things. It is not "disingenuous" to attribute his recall to WU. It is common sense. https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/shoplifters-walking-into-stores-filling-bags-walking-out-of-stores-in-san-francisco-criminal-justice-reform/ https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/shoplifters-walking-into...
rvieira 4y ago
Children often grow up to hold opposite political views from their parents/guardians as a form of rebellion, so it's not that linear. A (ethical) social experiment can be made by looking at siblings later in life (e.g. the Hitchens brothers).
- georgia_peach 4y ago
  You are talking politics--the domain of public policy--where people often disagree on the means, while being mostly in agreement on the ends. I am talking value systems--regarding lawlessness as a tool rather than a dysfunction. Regardless of one's politics, I suspect most people are offended by the idea of using lawlessness in this way--as evidenced by his brief tenure. Basketball for example: Say the fans see a player traveling. The referee also sees it, but does nothing. How will the fans react? Value systems. Rules are there to be enforced. People get pissed off when the rules aren't enforced, or enforced inconsistently. I think it goes without saying that apples occasionally fall far from the tree... occasionally.

ren_engineer 4y ago

>Crime overall has fallen since Mr. Boudin took office in January 2020 lol, that's pretty easy to do when you just stop prosecuting people. Same way graduation rates increase if you just stop failing people. Who cares about the actual purpose of institutions or whether goals are being achieved, just make sure the numbers are what we want https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1533544746173571079 https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1533544746173571079

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rajup 4y ago
> lol, that's pretty easy to do when you just stop prosecuting people. Same way graduation rates increase if you just stop failing people. Or the way COVID cases drop when you stop testing!
mrtksn 4y ago
This can't be simple as a corrupt or lazy prosecutor, right? What is the full story here?
- usrn 4y ago
  A prosecutor who was captured by ideology.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    care to expand on that?
    - ardit33 4y ago
      DA parents were domestic terrorists jailed or murder (google it) So he was raised with parents in jail and became a defendant attorney. He took power he took revenge on the system and people by stopping prosecuting people in the name of social justice, and letting crime run rampant. Straight out of a Batman movie, just in real life there is no Batman to save SF. People had enough and are revolting against this lying lunatic. Good riddance.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sydthrowaway 4y ago

SFPD is rotten to the core and need to be recalled.

etaioinshrdlu 4y ago

I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?

ryanobjc 4y ago
Can you explain why you want to do the other thing, when the results aren't really working?
jacobolus 4y ago
It’s a gross abuse of the recall process. Recalls should be reserved for flagrant abuses of power, egregious ethical lapses, or profound incompetence. If voters are just unhappy with an elected official, they should follow the normal election process. The SF DA is up for a routine election in November of 2023. Turning recalls into a routine part of politics, where billionaire-backed activists can try to dump a bunch of money into advertising and redo every election they didn’t like the outcome of, in low-turnout primaries or special elections, ends up costing the city a fortune and distorting the ordinary political process.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- native_samples 4y ago
  Presumably the people who voted for the recall believe he's guilty of all three of those. Certainly, a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute criminals could be described as engaging in profound incompetence. It's hard to get worse at doing your job than outright refusing to do it.
remarkEon 4y ago
I didn't really know anything about him beyond all the media the last year calling him the "Progressive DA in San Francisco" ... and then I read his wikipedia page and WEW. I'm genuinely gobsmacked that a) people are surprised he behaved the way he did as DA and b) that some actually thought it was a good idea to elect a communist as chief law enforcement officer. Maybe don't do that? In any case, this is a rare but good story about democracy's fail safe mechanisms kicking in.

anonAndOn 4y ago

Tomorrow's headline: Prosecution reform disappears following hundreds of catalytic converters

drewbug01 4y ago

I’m saddened that - as a society - we can’t seem to get away from the idea that the answer to crime is to “be tough on crime.” This recall seems to be an expression of our basic urge to punish, rather than any real desire to address the problems that lie at the root of most crime. We’ve tried the “tough on crime” approach for so many years, and all it’s really done is inflate the prison population (with mostly non-white people, at that). Hopefully someday we can break the cycle and make real changes that will (in time) reduce crime by addressing the sources of the problem in the first place.

georgia_peach 4y ago
What is "the root of most crime"? What should society do with criminals instead?
- drewbug01 4y ago
  I suppose it's better to say "roots," plural. Nobody knows what lies at the roots of crime for _certain_, but there has been a lot of research into the topic. Several things seem to be strongly correlated with increased risk for criminal behavior, but we can't draw direct causality relationships quite yet. The Wikipedia article on it is informative, and viewpoint-neutral: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_criminal_behaviour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_correlations_of_cr... One of the more interesting possible roots of criminal behavior is lead exposure as a child. It's not entirely clear, of course (socioeconomic status is a confounding factor that is hard to eliminate), but there seems to at least be some strong correlation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis My point isn't that we should be redirecting more resources to lead removal than to recalling a prosecutor (even though I _do_ think lead removal is a wise use of resources). My point is that deterrence and punishment is "cleaning up after the fact," rather than trying to address problems at their source. The question "what should society do with criminals" implies a belief that criminality _must_ exist in a society. Perhaps to some degree, it is true. But it seems as though redirecting our efforts to prevent criminality in the first place by addressing the underlying root causes would ultimately be a far better use of our resources, and far more effective.