(Originally published by the San Francisco Chronicle on May 3, 2022) 

Promoters of the campaign to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin have often exploited — or cynically distorted — some common public misconceptions about what district attorneys do. Among the more egregious of these efforts has been the focus on diversion. Proponents of the recall have pushed the utterly false idea that diversion is the opposite of prosecution — indeed that it is something fundamentally inconsistent with what district attorneys are elected to do.

So let’s settle some basic facts: Diversion is a form of prosecution. It has been used by prosecutors all over the country for decades. And the evidence suggests that it works pretty well.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on SF Chronicle’s page here.)