Chesa Boudin is the founding executive director of Berkeley’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, a policy and advocacy hub. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the president of the board of the Prison Law Office, and a winner of the 2025 Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service. He served as San Francisco’s elected district attorney from 2020 until 2022. Prior to his election Boudin clerked for two federal judges and worked for years as a deputy public defender. He is a graduate of Yale college and Yale law school and attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. His biological parents spent a combined 62 years in prison starting when he was a baby.
Boudin’s work has appeared or been profiled in The Yale Law Journal, The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, and many more. View his scholarly publications.
Education
JD, Yale Law School (2011)
MSc, Oxford University (2006)
MSC, Oxford University (2004)
BA, Yale University (2003)
Illegal to stop retail theft in California? No, bill never proposed this | Fact check
The social media claim is “blatantly false,” said Chesa Boudin executive director of the Criminal Law and Justice Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
California prison on generator power after wildfires knock out electricity and fill cells with smoke
“We have seen climate-related, and certainly fire-related, impacts on jails and prisons across the globe with an increasing level and severity as climate change has picked up pace,” said Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Accountability Is Not a Pseudonym for a Cage: Chesa Boudin on Decarceration in our Lifetimes
Chesa Boudin speaks with In These Times about his new job at Berkeley’s Criminal Law and Justice Center and how he thinks abolitionists can win in San Francisco, California, and the nation.
Santa Rosa suing suspected sideshow organizers; says tire debris polluted area waterways
“Traditional law enforcement approaches have largely failed to disrupt sideshows and so we are seeing a proliferation of new strategies to respond,” said Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Chesa Boudin talks crime, justice—and what’s happened to SF under Brooke Jenkins
Chesa Boudin discusses his new role as the founding director of Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Former SF district attorney Chesa Boudin to lead new Berkeley Law criminal justice center
“I am thrilled to be joining a phenomenal group of scholars and students whose work and ideas inspire me everyday,” Boudin said. “Their creativity, their energy, their vision — I am excited to be part of this team and am excited for all of the work we will do together.”
Chesa Boudin: Why I’m not running for office in 2024
“The long-term task and responsibility of those who believe in a more just criminal legal system are to educate the public to see these issues with greater clarity — and to mobilize that public to build institutions and infrastructure capable of supporting a society that is safe and just for all,” writes Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law and Justice Center. “That work is now more important than ever. I look forward to the challenge of taking it on.”
San Francisco’s Ousted District Attorney Has a New Job
Boudin, who has largely stayed quiet since the recall, steps into a new role this week, as the founding executive director of the new Criminal Law and Justice Center at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law.