What is now a multimillion-dollar campaign to recall the elected prosecutor in Alameda County, California, began just six months after she took office.
When Pamela Price won office in 2022, she became the first district attorney in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, in decades who hadn’t risen through the ranks of the DA’s office. Instead, Price was a former defense and civil rights attorney focused on reforming the criminal justice system and holding police accountable for misconduct.
Now, with the recall effort against her gaining steam, Price is calling out the double standard against her office, denouncing the focus on crime as the perpetuation of a racist trope.
“There is obviously no place where racism has been so accepted than in the criminal justice system,” she said. “When we talk about crime in America — for decades, if not centuries — crime has been a euphemism for race. And to be afraid of crime is synonymous often for many people with being afraid of Black people or being afraid of brown people.”
Police unions spent heavily against Price in 2018, when she first took on her predecessor, Nancy O’Malley, who had held office for a decade without facing a challenger. In June, a grand jury found that O’Malley violated county policies during the 2018 election by soliciting campaign funds from police unions.
Price lost to O’Malley in 2018 but beat one of her deputies in 2022 to become the first Black woman to serve as Alameda County’s district attorney.
It was under O’Malley’s tenure that homicides in Oakland first spiked, but Price’s opponents say they want to recall her because her reform policies have driven crime in the city, one of the 14 cities in the county. Price told The Intercept that those behind the recall campaign did not take the same tack against O’Malley when crime rose during her time in office — and that some of the cases she is being blamed for were handled by O’Malley.
Price acknowledged that violence remains an issue that she wants to tackle in office and said her policies are designed to allocate more resources toward the most serious crimes. She said, however, she has a problem with the way O’Malley never received the same scrutiny, criticism, or vitriol about crime during her tenure.
“If you did not hold Nancy O’Malley accountable, it is not fair for you to now be in the public eye suggesting to the public that I’m doing something wrong,” Price said. (O’Malley did not respond to a request for comment.)
Grisham’s motivation for wanting to recall the DA is rooted in Price’s neglect of victims and her decision to release murderers. Grisham refuted claims of improper signature collection and clarified that canvassers did not have to be from the county. She expressed confidence in the validity of the signatures gathered for the recall ballot.
She mentioned that the recall effort was planned in mid-2023 and emphasized that the funding source should not matter as they are all county citizens. Hedge fund partner Philip Dreyfuss, a significant donor to the recall committee, raised over $390,000 last year. Dreyfuss also supported the recall of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin in 2022.
The recall of Price has been portrayed by national media as a debate on criminal justice reform approaches. Price acknowledged this, but she also pointed out that wealthy investors backing the recall have interests in protecting downtown Oakland real estate. Price stressed the importance of opposing racial inequities in the justice system and highlighted the need to support victims in Alameda County.
Price criticized the recall backers for prioritizing control over the district attorney’s office rather than victims’ well-being. She criticized their substantial financial support for the recall effort as a missed opportunity to fund trauma recovery programs.
Opponents of the recall have highlighted similarities in donors and messaging between the campaigns against Price and Boudin. The replacement for Boudin, Brooke Jenkins, has faced criticism for not disclosing payments from groups linked to the SF recall campaign. Violent crime has risen under Jenkins, prompting a challenger, Ryan Khojasteh, who previously worked for Price and is now campaigning against Jenkins.
Khojasteh has criticized Jenkins for failing to address the crime increase after promising solutions following Boudin’s recall. Jenkins has shifted blame to judges, a move that has not been well-received. Efforts to remove two San Francisco judges recently failed in elections. The decision to shift responsibility to judges proved unsuccessful. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce expressed concerns about rising crime rates under Jenkins, with 72 percent of residents feeling the city is on the wrong track and 69 percent believing crime worsened during her tenure. Jenkins’ rhetoric has undermined trust in the justice system, making it difficult for prosecutors and judges to fulfill their duties. The false narrative of being “soft-on-crime” has been used in both the San Francisco and Alameda County situations, perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Alameda County, being diverse, may have differing perspectives on crime and justice. The intersection of race and crime has influenced the criminal justice system and the ongoing conversation about mass incarceration. It is crucial to address these issues to dismantle the system of mass incarceration. Please rewrite this sentence.
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