https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/why-san-francisco-fired-chesa-boudin#:~:text=Having%20taken%20office%20just%20before,pandemic%20as%20a%20public%2DhealthMost American cities are among the wealthiest places in the wealthiest country in the world, and yet there is too much garbage and not enough housing, public transit is a mess, stores and garages are being broken into, and public schools, during the pandemic, were often closed. The message from Democratic voters to the politicians who run these cities is pretty straightforward and a matter of policy: these places need fixing. Boudin began his tenure as the protagonist of a story about the criminal-justice system. He ended it as a character in a story about cities.
True enough. Boudin wasn't the cause of the SF Crime Wave, but his policies kept it going, and they blocked the solutions. And the solution, at a certain level, IS to arrest and incarcerate. Incarceration DOES take a person out of society where they cannot harm society while incarcerated. To those who think that $950 worth of stuff shouldn't cause someone to be prosecuted, consider that $950 might be all some people have.
Chesa Boudin refused to do his job in certain circumstances. That's called nonfeasance of office. His job was to protect the rights of ordinary citizens to life, liberty, and property. He refused to prosecute certain classes of people who violated that right against others in a manner that, collectively, adds up. That's something that prosecutors SHOULD be fired for. The world is not always a place of perfect justice, but the refusal to prosecute crimes that involve real victims and the refusal to act to protect victims when one has the opportunity and charge to do so is why Chesa Boudin should never have been DA in the first place. If Chesa Boudin didn't like the laws he was called to enforcce, he ran for the wrong office.
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