Professor David Sklansky is quoted in this San Francisco Chronicle article about a recent study by the Stanford Criminal Justice Center which indicates that Latinos are underrepresented in the state of California. 

As tensions increase between minority communities and law enforcement, a survey of county prosecutors in California shows Latinos greatly underrepresented, compared with their proportion of the population, and whites greatly overrepresented.

Based on data from 52 of the 58 counties, representing 98 percent of the state’s residents, researchers at Stanford Law School found that Latinos made up 9.4 percent of the 3,765 full-time prosecutors, while accounting for 38.6 percent of the population, more than any other racial or ethnic group. Whites constituted 69.8 percent of the prosecutors and 38.5 percent of the population.

…

“The demographics of California prosecutors are stuck in the 1970s,” the study said. Law Professor David Sklansky, who helped to supervise the report, said such disparities can damage the system’s fairness, as well as its standing with the public.

Studies of police departments have shown that “when criminal justice agencies don’t reflect the diversity of communities they serve, it undermines trust and confidence in those agencies,” said Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. In view of prosecutors’ power over charging decisions, plea agreements and sentencing, he said, “you want those decisions to be made by an office that represents the full range of the communities impacted.”