From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast. It's Thursday, June 16th.

There was an election result in San Francisco last week that we haven't mentioned yet on this show,

but we are going to get to now because of its possible relevance to elections in any liberal city where crime and homelessness

are prominent issues. In case you didn't hear this yet, voters in San Francisco recalled their

progressive prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, and it wasn't even close. Now, there are versions of these kinds of

attempted removals going on in other places, too. In the Republican primary debate for

Governor of New York on Monday, on WCBS, all the candidates said some version of this about

Manhattan's progressive prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. This is an example from candidate Harry Wilson.

In terms of Mr. Bragg, I have been very clear he has been a disgrace in the office and I would fire him day one.

Now that, despite Wilson having made a campaign donation to Bragg in the past, but are liberal-minded urbanites really alienated from their progressive prosecutors

who are trying to fight crime and mass incarceration at the same time? Let's take a closer look

with Fordham University Law Professor John Faf, who has an article on Slate called What the San Francisco

D.A. recall really tells us and what it doesn't.

John Pfaff is also the author of the 2017 book,

Locked in the True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform.

Professor Faf, thanks for coming on.

Welcome back to WNYC.

Thank you so much for having me.

And let's start by refreshing our memories on what people mean by the term

progressive prosecutor, or at least how you in particular use it.

Yeah, it's a tricky term.

It encompasses a wide range of behavior.

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