The Progressive Prosecutor Movement with Chesa Boudin

The United States is one of the most incarcerated nations in the world. But why does the U.S. have so many people in prison and what are the biggest drivers of mass incarceration? One way to understand the answer to this question is to look at how prosecution is done in America. Reimagining criminal justice procedures has been the focus of a growing progressive prosecutor movement. Chesa Boudin, a proponent of reforming prosecutorial procedures, is the former district attorney of San Francisco, a position that he held until his recall in 2022. His biological parents spent a combined 62 years in prison starting when he was a baby. He’s now the founding executive director of Berkeley’s Criminal Law and Justice Center. Boudin joins WITHpod to discuss his familial experience with incarceration, the backlash he received while in office, building out alternative infrastructures, rethinking decarceration and more.