By Amy Alexander

In 2003, Kamala Harris became the first African-American woman to be elected District Attorney in San Francisco. Re-elected in 2007, Harris continued the innovative law enforcement work she’d begun while serving as managing attorney in the Career Criminal Unit in the SF DA’s office.

Earlier, Harris served as an Assistant District Attorney (ADA) in Alameda County, California, the jurisdiction of her hometown, Oakland. The daughter of the Indian-born Shyamala Gopalan, M.D., and James Harris, a Stanford University economics professor who emigrated from Jamaica, Harris has degrees from Howard University and The University of California Berkeley’s Hastings College of Law. Before her initial election, in 2003, she had served as an ADA in Alameda County.

Kamala Harris

Before taking over as DA in 2004, Harris made it clear that she opposed the death penalty. Since then, she has cut a wide swath in her quest to re-think the “tough on crime” tactics that aided the explosive incarceration rates in America’s jails and prisons during the past twenty years: In recent months, Harris received a $700,000 US Department of Justice grant to support advocacy programs for non-English speaking victims of domestic violence; initiated a non-violent offenders’ re-entry program centered on job training and education; and pushed to tighten truancy laws for the city’s high school-age children.

Throughout, her selective prosecution strategy – which she refers to as a “focused prosecution strategy” — has led some SF residents to criticize her as “soft on crime.” Late last year, she announced plans to run for the office of California State Attorney General. Will her contemporary, somewhat controversial approach to crime-fighting in San Francisco translate statewide? And does Harris have political aspirations beyond the Golden State? TheDefendersOnline caught up with Harris at a busy time: she is managing affairs of the DA’s office, campaigning up and down the coast, and also celebrating the publication of her first book, Smart On Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer.

Q: What was your vision for the job when you became San Francisco DA in 2003?

A: As DA, my focus has been on prosecuting crime with resolve, and cutting recidivism while still protecting civil rights.

If we’re going to be effective at fighting crime and making our communities safer, we need to focus on both ends of the spectrum. That starts with demanding swift and serious consequences for the serious and violent offenders. We cannot tolerate violent crime. It also means preventing crime by ending the endless cycle of low-level, nonviolent offenders going in and out of our jails at great cost to both public safety and public resources. We must invest in strategies to reduce recidivism. Doing one without the other isn’t tough and it isn’t smart.

As a career prosecutor, I know that public safety is a basic civil right. Every individual has the right to live in safety and peace. Being smart on crime means employing strategies that can ensure everyone in our community is protected.

Q: Have you achieved what you envisioned?

A: I am proud of what we have accomplished in San Francisco. Since I took office, we’ve raised the felony conviction rate to 71 percent which is the highest it has been in over 14 years. That’s an increase of about 20 percent since 2003.

We’re winning convictions and making sure that offenders are held accountable. Roughly twice as many people were sentenced to state prison in 2008, compared to 2003. By creating a gun specialist team we’ve been able to achieve great success in felony gun trials, doubling the conviction rate at trial from a little over 40 percent in 2003 to over 80 percent in 2008.

We’re also achieving great success breaking the cycle of crime through innovation. Our Back on Track reentry initiative is reducing recidivism among low-level, nonviolent offenders at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches.

In Back on Track, low-level, nonviolent drug offenders plead guilty and commit to strict court supervision while they complete an intensive personal responsibility program. They are trained for a job, go back to school, get current with child support payments, enroll in parenting classes, and become positive contributors in their communities. Less than 10 percent of Back on Track graduates have re-offended, compared to a 54 percent average statewide recidivism rate for the same population of offenders.

Back on Track costs about $5,000 annually per participant, compared to $35,000 to $50,000 for jail or prison. Governor Schwarzenegger and the US Department of Justice have recognized our Back on Track re-entry initiative as a model for California and the nation.

We’ve also focused on truancy by prosecuting parents who fail to ensure that their children get the education they deserve. There is a reason that we have compulsory education laws. A child going without an education is tantamount to a crime. Two-thirds of inmates in our prisons were high school dropouts. Our children are being educated on the streets instead of in a classroom.

When I learned that more than 2,400 San Francisco elementary school children had missed as many as 80 days of a 180-day school year, I knew we were facing a crisis that had to be addressed. We began by putting parents on notice, and then prosecuting those who failed to avail themselves of the offered services that would enable them to get their children back in school on a regular basis. Since we started this initiative with the San

Francisco Unified School District four years ago, attendance among elementary school students has improved 20 percent on average.

Q: Despite the fact that San Francisco has a famously “liberal” reputation, in some neighborhoods, violent crime is a problem. Last year, a triple homicide in a predominantly Latino neighborhood, the Excelsior, shocked residents. You declined, though, to seek the death penalty for the 22 year-old man charged with the crime. Why?

A: We thoroughly reviewed the facts and the law in this case. It was a complex analysis that involved many issues. Based on a comprehensive review of these facts and the law, we are seeking life without the possibility of parole and will do everything possible to ensure that the defendant dies in prison for these horrific crimes.

Q: In interviews, you’ve mentioned wanting to use a more preventive approach to fighting crime than DAs of major cities have in the past. How has that taken shape in San Francisco?

A: Fighting crime requires a combination of prevention and enforcement. As we’ve learned from the public health model, prevention is the most effective and least costly way to stop any epidemic, whether it’s the flu or crime.

One approach does not exclude the other. Without question, when a crime has been committed, we must react. But if we want to address the overall problem of crime, and not just respond to individual cases and incidents of violence, we need to be more than reactive. We need to be proactive in stopping crime before it starts.

Just look at the success of our Back on Track initiative and our efforts around truancy as examples of ways in which we’ve been effective in preventing crime at great savings to taxpayers.

We have also been engaged in legislative advocacy and public education around mortgage and financial crime to help keep homeowners, seniors and others hard hit by the financial crisis from falling victim to predators.

We spearheaded local legislation that requires loan modification consultants to produce tangible benefits for clients before collecting any fees for their services. Additionally, consumers who are scammed by disreputable operators have the ability to seek civil damages and my office can file criminal charges as well that can result in jail time and fines.

We’re also leveraging the resources of our partners in law enforcement, local government and consumer groups to arm the public with the information they need to steer clear of opportunists and scam artists. In recognition of our efforts, the federal government just awarded my office a competitive grant of over one million dollars to form a stand-alone unit focused on combating mortgage and investment fraud.

Q: Do you think it has been effective at deterring crime?

A: I am committed to reducing recidivism. Just look at our statistics to see that we are making a difference. Felony convictions are up. Elementary school truancy is down, and recidivism among nonviolent drug offenders is going down too. But of course, there is always more to do. Our approach is innovation. We implement new approaches to fight crime while continuing to do what works. We’re not afraid to employ new strategies. We do our homework. We study best practices. We stay abreast of what the trends are in our community and bring in partners who can help us devise innovative, cost-effective approaches with measurable outcomes.

With so much in our criminal justice system failing to work, we can’t be afraid to try new tactics. By being thoughtful and strategic about how we implement new strategies, we can improve public safety and create a more effective criminal justice system.

Q: Now you are campaigning to become the State Attorney General. The state is nearly broke. Prisons up and down the state are over-crowded, with several jurisdictions under court orders to lessen their prison populations. What can you do as the state’s top law enforcement officer to lower crime rates at a time of severe budget constraints?

A: It’s obvious that what we’ve been doing isn’t working. The business-as-usual strategy has to end. You know that old adage, “As goes California, so goes the nation.” I believe here in California we have the talent and the desire to reform our criminal justice system in such a fundamental way that we will be able to provide a blueprint for the rest of the country.

It’s going to mean making some hard choices, and we won’t see the effects overnight. With leadership, perseverance and a commitment to bringing together the best and brightest minds, no matter what side of the aisle they may be on politically, we can do it.

We’ve done it before. Thirty years ago, California’s prison and education systems were models for the country. I know we can be that again. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and help do the heavy lifting that will get us there once more.

We have to be innovative in addressing this problem because the financial toll this is taking on our state is too great. One recent study estimates that dropouts cost California $1.1 billion annually in juvenile crime costs alone. We can’t continue to allow our state to be drained of its monetary resources and human capital.

Q: Does California have anything to teach the rest of the nation about criminal justice?

A: California has the highest recidivism rate in the country. Within three years of being released from prison, over 70 percent of offenders will end up behind bars again. If we can close the revolving doors of our prison system for good, California will set the standard for public safety in America.

It starts by moving past the false choice of being either “soft” or “tough” on crime. It’s time we get smart instead and recognize that the vast majority of offenders will serve their time and return to the communities where they originally offended. If we don’t invest the time and resources needed to make sure that return is a productive one, we will continue to pay in terms of diminished public safety and wasted resources.

Q: We all remember when crack cocaine use devastated some urban communities, but now many researchers say the harsh sentencing rules put in place 25 years ago are no longer appropriate, and that judges should have more leeway when imposing sentences. Can a State Attorney General be an effective advocate for convincing legislatures (and by extension Congress) to re-think sentencing guidelines that were put in place during the mid-1980s?

A: What we keep learning is that there is no “one size fits all” approach that will work to make our communities safer. Any policy that puts forward a mandate that doesn’t solve the problem or measure success will likely run into problems.

As a law enforcement community we need to get serious about measuring the success of the practices we adopt. How can we know what works if we don’t have measurable outcomes? We also can’t be afraid to try new approaches. Some will surely fail, others will need to be revamped, but the only way to find a solution is to test new theories and measure the outcomes of those trials.

We also have to face the fact that we need a real plan for how we handle drug offenders who make up the vast majority of our prison population. In my office, we estimate that at least 60 percent of our caseload is for narcotics offenses. Many of these individuals are nonviolent offenders. Yet, the criminal justice response to many low-level, nonviolent offenders is the same as the response to the most serious and violent criminals for whom lifetime imprisonment is the appropriate and necessary response.

Make no mistake. Illegal drug sales and drug use harm our communities. This is not a victimless crime. Without question, the people who commit these offenses must be prosecuted and held accountable for their crimes.

But, do we continue to ignore the underlying addictions, lack of education, skills and legitimate job prospects that keep these individuals cycling in and out of our prison system? We need to finally get smart and start to build the infrastructure that is needed to get them on track to being productive members of our society.

Q: In your experience as a prosecutor, which populations are most adversely affected by these severe sentencing guidelines?

A: Everyone suffers when we have a system of justice that lacks measured and appropriate responses that fit the crime. We pay the price in terms of wasted resources. We pay the price in terms of decreased public safety.

Q: How does it sit with you when interviewers refer to you in their stories as “the female Barack Obama’?”

A: I am a big supporter of President Obama, so, of course, it is immensely humbling and flattering to be compared to him. I believe prominent journalist Gwen Ifill was the person who brought this analogy forward. Gwen interviewed me for her outstanding book, the Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, along with California State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass; Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick; Newark; New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker; and Alabama Democratic Congressman Artur Davis; and a host of other new elected officials of color.

Like President Obama, many leaders of this new generation are breaking barriers as we take up leadership roles in government and fulfill our commitment to public service. For years, each of us has been in our own corners doing this important work of serving the public. I think the President’s historic election truly changed the perception of who can do what job in America.

His unprecedented victory brought attention to the new generation of leaders of all ethnicities and genders becoming “firsts.” As more and more of us rise up through the ranks, changing the face of leadership in our country so that it is more reflective of our society as a whole, comparisons are being drawn. People are trying to connect the dots. I am deeply honored to be doing this work in such good company.

Amy L. Alexander is a writer. Her next book, Minority Opinion: A Story of Race, Media and Reinvention, will be released in 2010 by Beacon Press.