So I wanna move on to cash bail, I think it's a super important issue.
And I feel like it might be one of those issues where we put the cart
before the horse.
Because of the fact that crime is classified
in very strange ways in this state.
So before we get to those details,
I wanna go to a video featuring an interview that you did on democracy.
Now this is where you were talking about what your goals were in regard to no
cash bail.
Let's take a look at that, we'll discuss.
Some of the specific policies to your question Amy include ending money bail.
And that's a fight that I've been involved in, in the courts for
going on five years now through litigation.
I'm excited on day one to be able to put in place a policy that prohibits my staff
from ever putting a price tag on freedom.
And any of the problem with money bail for folks who aren't familiar with it
is that when someone gets arrested under the money bail system,
they can buy their way out immediately if they have resources.
And that's without regard to their risk or to their community ties.
So someone who's really dangerous but has access to wealth can be out of jail and
back on the streets within a matter of hours.
While another person charged with less serious crime with weaker evidence
against them and stronger ties to the community would languish behind bars
simply because of their poverty.
>> I like the way you frame the argument there and
that is how I genuinely believe no cash bail was gonna work.
It was going to ensure that low level offenders, non violent stuff doesn't land
someone behind bars before they get to see a trial date.
So I like the idea of no cash bail for nonviolent offenders.
However there is a problem with the way crime is classified in California, where
you have, what I would argue are violent crimes being classified as non serious or
nonviolent crimes, things like arson.
Certain assaults.
I mean this list is insanely long taking a hostage.
How is taking a hostage, not considered a serious violent crime.
And so you'll see repeat offenders who have these
issues getting released with no bail.
And then this data I wanna be clear does not come
from when you were already in office.
This is from the few years prior.
But I think that it is telling because more than half of people this is a graphic
six guys.
More than half of people charged with crimes and released from jail before their
trials in San Francisco were accused of committing a new crime while free and
a similar share failed to appear in court in recent years according to this
new study.
Again this is from data before Boudin, I wanna be clear.
According to this study done by the California Policy Lab based at
UC Berkeley and UCLA.
Additionally 1 in 6 defendants allegedly went on to commit a new violent offense.
And so are you at all concerned about that?
And does that data make you rethink this approach?
>> Well, it's actually the opposite Ana, it's the frustration that San Francisco
voters had with that data, which as you say predates my administration and
my bail reform policies.
It's the frustration with seeing people who have access to money,
buy their way out of jail and continue to commit crimes.
That led to my election and that led me to implement a policy that is grounded
in public safety and victim's rights and an equal protection under law.
We have a system under my leadership where we ask the court to hold in custody,
people who we believe present a public safety risk or a flight risk.
We don't care how wealthy or how poor they are.
If you're a repeat offender, if you're committing violent crimes, if you're
playing with weapons, we are gonna ask the court to hold you in jail pending trial.
If on the other hand, you're someone who has no criminal history,
strong family ties or otherwise a basis for us to think that the evidence against
you may be weak or that you're not a public safety risk.
It shouldn't matter that you're poor,
you shouldn't be stuck in jail simply because of your poverty.
In other words, we have a system where as in every county in California,
the judges make the ultimate decision about who gets released or
who gets held in custody pending trial.
But when it comes to what we ask the court to do,
it is based 100% in public safety and protecting victims and
has nothing to do with wealth or wealth-based discrimination.
We should not live in a society where people are presumed innocent and
sitting in jail simply because of their poverty.
Nor should we live in a society where people who we know have a history of
repeat offenses are out of jail simply because they have access to enough
money to buy their freedom.
My policy makes it clear, it's a risk based system, not a wealth based system.
>> And final question for you, since you were sworn in,
you have reduced San Francisco's jail population by 40%.
That was one of your stated goals.
You wanted to end mass incarceration and a question that I've always had,
is there anything in place to help these individuals transition into society?
Even if they're low level drug offenders, I know that you prioritized
elderly prisoners who might have medical conditions.
You yourself had mentioned that we lack services in the state,
they were severely under resourced.
So was there anything in place to ensure that these people transitioned back
into society and had the support they needed to avoid or
prevent having to commit another crime, maybe out of desperation in the future.
>> Absolutely and
just to be clear and to that decline that you mentioned didn't happen overnight.
It's not like we released a huge number of people at once.
What happened was we saw a historic decline in reported crimes, a historic
decline in arrests being brought to us by police during the pandemic.
And as people have completed their sentences or went off to state prison or
otherwise released, we saw a gradual steady decline in the jail population.
And here's how we did it because you're exactly right.
Reentry is critical and it's an area that state prison and
county jails all across the country don't pay nearly enough attention to.
We have to make sure that when people are released from jail,
they have somewhere to go.
They have structures supervision supports in place to make sure they don't
re-offend.
We identified in the heart of the pandemic people who really never should have been
in jail in the first place.
I wanna just tell you one story,
one example of how we worked to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in our county jail.
We found a young woman who had never been convicted of a crime before was serving
a sentence for her first ever misdemeanor property crime conviction.
She was drug addicted, she was pregnant and
the jail medical staff told us it was a high risk pregnancy.
Well with a high risk pregnancy and COVID-19,
the last place you wanna be is in a jail cell.
And we worked with the court, we worked with our reentry partners,
jail medical staff to get this young woman sentenced commuted to time served and
to get her transported directly to a prenatal residential facility.
I am so proud to tell you that she stayed the course with the treatment she gave
birth to a healthy baby.
She was sober, she graduated from the program.
She has not been arrested again and she continues to take care of her child.
That's the kind of success story that reflects San Francisco values.
It builds public safety, it's an appropriate prioritization of public
health and of limited law enforcement resources.
>> Yeah, that is a fantastic story, I'm really happy to hear that.
But is there like a system in place?
Are you working with certain organizations to make that transition smooth?
Especially when people were first getting released in 2020,
when businesses were shuttered during lock downs and
there aren't really many opportunities out there?
>> A huge problem the number of homeless shelter beds, the number of drug treatment
beds, all the kinds of services that folks in this community of justice
involved individuals need were drastically reduced during the pandemic.
We work every day with sentencing planners on my staff,
with social workers at the public defender's office,
with organizations like San Francisco's Pre Trial Diversion Project or
the Young Women's Freedom Center or Adult Probation or Parole.
We're working with every single agency and partner organization we can, to find
individual case specific tailored reentry programs for people being released.
We want people who get out of jail, whether it's with a criminal conviction,
whether it's pending trial, whether it's on probation or parole,
we want them to never come back into the system.
And the failure, the systemic failures across this country that have lead to
recidivism rates above two thirds are exactly why we need reforms.
We cannot simply warehouse people kick the can down the road and
expect that after a month, a year or a decade behind bars,
their mental illness will magically disappear.
We need meaningful treatment.
We need meaningful community partnerships.
We need criminal justice reform.
>> All right Chesa a Boudin District Attorney for SAN Francisco, thank you so
much for being so generous with your time and allowing me to grill you.
You handled it really well, [LAUGH] so- >> Well, I love what I do and
I'm always happy to talk about it and thank you Ana.
>> Have a good one.
You too