Chesa Boudin's Recall and the Dangerous Mainstream Media Narratives about Crime
Countering the myth that criminal legal reform is dead as we head to the polls
Dear Readers,
Today, I send out a relatively brief, slightly belated edition about the much-publicized defeat of San Francisco’s former “progressive” district attorney Chesa Boudin in a recall election and why we must not fall for the incredibly problematic, and frankly dangerous rhetoric in mainstream media about what happened and what it means for the push for transformative justice nationwide.
I want to get this out before election season is in full swing. The essay I mentioned last week will be out soon!
A lot of mainstream news outlets (most especially The New York Times) are stating as fact that “progressive” district attorneys are being recalled or losing elections because their policies are not only failing but are actually causing an uptick in crime in their communities. That narrative is false. It’s a red herring pulling our attention away from the systems and structures that both cause and perpetuate harm in our communities.
First, at a superficial level, in many places, so-called progressive prosecutors, both incumbent and new to the scene, fared quite well in recent primary elections.
The idea that progressive prosecutors and criminal legal policies are unpopular is a false narrative that largely stems from privileging the voices and perspectives of those who have benefitted greatly from the status quo.Second, in most places, crime rates are at the lowest levels they have been in decades even as the media narratives state otherwise.
If “tough on crime” worked in a nation that has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, we should be crime-free. Let’s be intellectually honest here — public safety is not really the goal of the criminal legal and carceral systems, it’s just narrative cover.Third, a number of places have experienced an uptick in violent crime, however that is true everywhere, whether the community had a “progressive” prosecutor or a “tough on crime” prosecutor (e.g. enforcing social control policies that disproportionately impact communities of color and low income communities).
In other words, it’s disingenuous and factually incorrect to say that progressive prosecutors and their policies cause violence in the community.Fourth, studies in Boston and Baltimore have shown that some of the policies implemented by those cities’ “progressive” prosecutors have lowered recidivism and crime.
Fifth, I have yet to find reporting on recent elections that situates what is happening now in any kind of socio-historical context — our nation’s history of slavery, the genocide and displacement of Indigenous peoples, state-sanctioned racialized violence and social control, and love affair with valuing profit over human life is always present in the present. The many narratives deployed to spread fear and misinformation are rooted in our long history of violence, repression, and social control—to speak about it without that context is both dangerous and dishonest.
Sixth, what we are seeing now has been created over the course of centuries, with the most recent tsunami of mass criminalization and incarceration shapeshifting into its current form in the 1980s, with a strong push from Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, among others in the mid-1990s.
The kind of change we want to see is going to take time, investment, faith, and imagination. The change we want to see is going to take us doing something that hasn’t been done before — not just tweaks to the existing monolith. And it is certainly going to take more than a “progressive” prosecutor or sheriff to build that kind of change. (More on this below).
It is important to note that conservatives, democrats, wealthy people, and white people pool their money together to fund mis- and disinformation campaigns, as was the case in San Francisco, to protect the status quo, which includes criminalizing and incarcerating unhoused people, protecting inflated police budgets, and building more jails and prisons and keeping the beds full to name only three. The misinformation campaigns are often funded and supported by powerful police unions, the private prison industry, tough on crime politicians, and others, in order to prevent transformative justice movements from gaining traction (though they do anyway).
Finally, it’s important to point out that even if it is your perception that crime has increased, I can assure you that snapping back to the old policies, or making sure they remain in place, will not yield the results you hope for — that is if you are hoping for a safe, equitable society where all people thrive. Starting with the Black Codes in the 1870s, gaining traction with the War on Drugs in the 1980s, and fomenting its place in history with various laws passed in the mid-1990s,
mass criminalization and incarceration have not stopped crime, or even reduced it. Indeed, they have served to create pipelines and hamster wheels ensuring the perpetuation of crime.If we want to grapple with crime, we need to choose to invest in people, communities, basic incomes, and so much more. We need to choose to invest in building up people, communities, connections instead of brutalizing, surveilling, controlling, and shaming people, locking them up and throwing away the key.
Below the line break are some resources if you want to learn more.
Thank you for reading!
Respectfully submitted,
Amy
Please take a moment to check out the following articles that provide more context about what is happening around the country regarding the progressive criminal legal reform movement:
Janine Jackson, “‘The Times Is Telling You to Choose Between Rights and Safety’” FAIR, available at: https://fair.org/home/the-times-is-trying-to-tell-you-to-choose-between-rights-and-safety/
Jerry Iannelli, “The Chesa Boudin Recall Was A Fight To Protect The Status Quo,” The Appeal (June 8, 2022), available at: https://theappeal.org/chesa-boudin-recall-loss/
Jerry Iannelli, “Democrats Would Rather Become Republicans Than Make the Case for Justice Reform,” The Appeal (June 22, 2022), available at: https://theappeal.org/democrats-run-from-police-reform/
Sam Levi, “Where did it go wrong for Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s ousted progressive DA?,” The Guardian (June 9, 2022), available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/08/chesa-boudin-san-francisco-recall-analysis
Katrina vanden Heuvel, “Why prosecutorial reform will outlive Chesa Boudin’s recall,” The Nation, available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/why-prosecutorial-reform-will-outlive-chesa-boudins-recall/
If you are wondering to yourself, “Okay, if not this, then what?,” I want to remind all of us — there are many, many people who have been organizing, mobilizing, and creating these alternatives for as long as these dominant systems have existed. We do not need to (re)invent the wheel! Instead, we need to read, listen, and actively engage with people who are already hard at work to build, foster, generate, and perpetuate transformative justice. Here are some suggestions (though there is a huge universe of organizing around these issues):
violence interrupter programs
community impact funds (two examples and typically not those connected to large foundations)
trauma informed everything
restorative practices
community-based organizations led and run by those closest to the issues
For example, Sista Fire, local chapters of National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
run for local office
engage with electeds in your city/town/county/state
donate to organizations run by those closest to the issues
You can also use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other tools to find out what is happening in your own community.
For a big imagining of what’s possible, here are some readings about abolition (Please take a look):
Abolitionist Futures Reading List 2022
A Reading List for Abolitionist Imagination and Practice
Abolition is the only solution
Ruth Gilmore Wilson (Google her!)
Angela Y. Davis (Google her, too!)
For example, check out: “What to Watch in the June 7 Primaries,” Bolt, available at: https://boltsmag.org/whats-on-the-ballot/june-7-2022-primaries/.
ACLU Washington, available at: https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/crime-rising-washington
Michael Pope, “A Closer Look at the Narrative Surrounding Virginia's Crime Rate,” Radio IQ, available at: https://www.wvtf.org/news/2021-10-21/a-closer-look-at-the-narrative-surrounding-virginias-crime-rate
For example, see Paul Waldman’s, “Opinion On crime and the economy, Republicans dictate the media narrative,” Washington Post, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/06/crime-economy-republicans-dictate-media-narrative/
While I do not agree with everything in this article, it at least demonstrates that there is no clear reason for violent crime:
Aaron Chalfin and John MacDonald, “We don’t know why violent crime is up. But we know there’s more than one cause.: Simple explanations for the surge are too pat — whatever they are,” Washington Post (July 9, 2021), available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/we-dont-know-why-violent-crime-is-up-but-we-know-theres-more-than-one-cause/2021/07/09/467dd25c-df9a-11eb-ae31-6b7c5c34f0d6_story.html
As abolitionist, activist, and writer Mariama Kaba noted:
1994 Crime Bill, Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, and the Adoption and Safe Families Act, to name but a few.