Across major cities, voters picked reform-minded district attorneys who promised to fight mass incarceration. Now, conservatives in both parties are trying to take them out.
As the public spent two years largely in their homes, fearfully consuming news of crimes from shoplifting to domestic violence to mass shootings, Republicans, conservative Democrats, and law enforcement officials have seized an opportunity to launder tough-on-crime narratives that have waned in popularity since the public became more concerned with mass incarceration and police brutality. The approach includes attempting to undermine growing support for criminal justice reform by blaming reformist prosecutors for crime and homelessness. Facing losses at the ballot, conservative groups targeting democratically elected officials have increasingly turned to recall elections as their preferred tool.
This comes despite data showing that even with the recent spike in gun violence and property crime, overall crime has been sharply declining since the 1990s
BOUDIN’S LOUDEST CRITICS claim that he is to blame for unprecedented levels of crime in San Francisco. But the city’s rates of robbery, rape, and larceny theft are below pre-pandemic levels and decreased between 2020 and 2021. The number of reported crimes in San Francisco droppedby 28,000 during Boudin’s first two years in office, while arrest and clearance rates also dropped in several categories.
Last year, the city saw an increase of eight homicides, as well as bigger spikes in larceny theft and assault — for a total overall, according to San Francisco Police Department data, of a 1 percent increase in violent crime and a 15 percent increase in property crime. Burglary, rape, robbery, motor vehicle theft, and arson all declined.
Boudin acknowledged that crime is a major concern for people across the country. But the role of police needs to be given more scrutiny, he said. “A recall, or replacing me with another DA, is irrelevant when police are only arresting less than 3 percent of people in reported thefts.”
While clearance rates for rape, robbery, assault, burglary, arson, and larceny and motor vehicle theft have declined overall during his time in office, some have begun to tick up again this year compared to 2021. Arrest rates by the SFPD, which has a budget of just over $700 million, have also declined during Boudin’s tenure.
DeRollo said that Boudin’s use of diversion means “many of those criminals are released and are reoffending again,” and claimed that Boudin “hides the fact that his office regularly sends cases back to detectives for more ‘information’ despite there being sufficient probable cause. That way he doesn’t have to count it as a dismissal. Crime is up in San Francisco across the board and thanks to Chesa Boudin the word is out that you can commit crimes in our city and not have to pay for it.”
Recent polls predict a tight contest for Boudin next week. One, commissioned by the effort against the recall, found that 48 percent of voters plan to vote to recall Boudin, 38 percent plan to vote “no,” and 14 percent are undecided. Other polls since March have shown that a majority of voters said they planned to vote “yes” and had an unfavorable opinion of Boudin.
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/03/san-francisco-chesa-boudin-recall/