In the fall of 2022, I served as the elections engagement editor for KALW Public Media in San Francisco. The following piece is one of the post-elections interviews I conducted about how public safety influenced the elections.

In the midterm elections this year, one thing that was voted on was public safety. And one office inextricably linked to crime and public safety is district attorney. In San Francisco, Brooke Jenkins was elected to the DA’s office this November, after serving as interim DA following the recall of Chesa Boudin. And across the Bay, Pamela Price has made history as the first Black woman to be elected DA of Alameda County.

Lara Bazelon is a law professor at the University of San Francisco and director of its criminal and juvenile and racial justice clinics.

KALW’s Elections Engagement Editor Sonia Paul spoke with Bazelon about how the run for da has changed over the years — from historically “tough on crime” approaches to a movement towards more “progressive prosecutors” and how that may be changing.

This piece originally aired on KALW’s Crosscurrents and was published online at KALW on December 12, 2022.