Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey debated the role of prosecutors in addressing houselessness, public safety and criminal reform in the Bay Area in an event at the UC Berkeley School of Law on Wednesday afternoon.
Held in Booth Auditorium, the event was hosted by the Federalist Society at Berkeley Law, a conservative and libertarian legal organization focused on promoting discourse around legal and constitutional issues.The debate drew a crowd of law students, faculty and staff members.
Boudin, the founding executive director of Berkeley’s Criminal Law and Justice Center, and Ramsey, a prosecutor in residence at Berkeley Law, opened the debate by reflecting on how their experiences as both prosecutors and defense attorneys shaped their approaches to justice.
Boudin went on to state that the criminalization of homelessness places unnecessary strain on the criminal justice system, diverting resources from prosecuting serious violent crimes.
“You cannot lock your way out of homelessness or poverty,” he said.“There’s no amount of jail or criminal convictions that will magically make people get off the street and find housing.”
Ramsey countered that houselessness is often closely tied to addiction and drug dealing. He referenced the state of houselessness and drug use in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood during his term in 2023, describing it as significantly worse than what he experienced growing up in the city.
Ramsey argued that this makes law intervention necessary when public safety is at risk.
“Some people need to go to jail,” he said. “There are some people who’ve done horrible crimes and who need to be locked away to protect society from them.”
While Boudin and Ramsey disagreed over how houselessness should be handled in the criminal justice system, they were able to end the debate in agreement on the need to maintain public safety while addressing property crime.
After the event, they agreed that such events are meant to foster critical thinking rather than persuade students of a single ideology.
“I’m not here to persuade people my views are better,” Boudin said. “I’m here to empower them to develop their own views and have confidence in their convictions.”
Shneur Gansberg, president of the Federalist Society at Berkeley Law, similarly emphasized the importance of exposing law students to diverse opinions through a debate-style format to directly engage with the topic of criminal justice.
“We really want to bring other perspectives to campus and allow people to really engage in good debate,” Gansberg said. “That’s what we’re in an educational environment to do.”