East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

Meet San Francisco District Attorney Kamala D. Harris:

Harris was raised in Berkeley and inspired by her parents from an early age to fight for equality and civil rights. The daughter of an Indian mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, and an African American father, Stanford professor Donald Harris, she grew up around the spirit of political activism — a foundation that has led Harris to a long record of distinguished public service.

She served as a prosecutor in Alameda County and San Francisco and as the Managing Attorney of the Career Criminal Unit in San Francisco. Before her 2003 election as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco’s history, she also served as head of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Division on Families and Children.

Why did you decide to go into public interest law?

Some of my earliest memories are of the civil rights movement, and because of those memories of the marching and passion and debate about justice, I became quite invested in the issues of equality for people of color and for women. My earliest role models were the leaders in the civil rights movement — my grandfather, my mother, people who were involved in doing the work that helped people. My mother is a very smart woman who is fierce in her honesty and in her opinions about what is fair, what is just and what is right. Law enforcement has such an impact on minority and immigrant communities, I wanted to have a place at the table to help make decisions about how law enforcement can help prevent crime from happening in the first place and how we can strengthen the bonds of trust with immigrant and minority communities.

What led you to form the API Advisory Committee?

I formed the API Advisory Committee in May 2004, and it is comprised of various community leaders as well as representatives from my office. It meets quarterly and has raised several important issues to date, such as hate crime, domestic violence and problem gambling. Because of the issues the Committee raised, we recently launched a problem gambling referral program in partnership with community organizations. Currently administered through our community courts program, the partnership gives first-time offenders the tools that can help them break this harmful habit. Instead of facing fines, jail time or community service, offenders diagnosed as problem gamblers will be referred to a ten-week, bilingual counseling and rehabilitation program.

We also recently launched the Youth Anti-Hate Crime Training Program, which also originated out of the API Advisory Committee. It is a public safety/public education empowerment campaign intended to address issues of hate-crimes and discrimination in the southeast sector of San Francisco. The program trains 20 – 25 students from Bayview and Visitation Valley neighborhoods to become ambassadors to stop hate crime in their neighborhoods.

Trafficking from Asian countries is a big problem. How does the California Trafficking Victims’ Protection Act help battle this?

The law makes human trafficking a felony crime for the first time in California. It allows state prosecutors to address intra-state trafficking and gives them the necessary tools to fight traffickers.  It enacts penalties for trafficking while cutting into traffickers' profits and imposes severe consequences — up to five years in state prison for each offense or up to eight years if the victim is a minor. It would make trafficking significantly less profitable through asset-forfeiture provisions and by allowing victims to sue their captors for restitution in civil court.

By raising the risk while cutting into the profits of human trafficking and creating an atmosphere where victims are encouraged to come forward, we can start to win the fight against this modern day slavery.

What made you focus on this problem?

One of my key priorities as District Attorney is the work of protecting women and children, and I’ve worked with partners locally and statewide on programmatic and legislative advances that would accomplish such a goal. For example, along with Assemblyman Leland Yee and Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), my office’s work to defend exploited children recently resulted in successful state legislation which increases punishment for those who sexually exploit youth.

How does your Indian background impact your work?

It allowed me to understand that one does not have to be one thing to the exclusion of something else. My mother is South Asian and she instilled in us a strong sense of our Indian culture. I also grew up in the African American community. Those two backgrounds helped me understand that we have more commonalities with each other than differences.

What keeps you going?

My family and friends. I have a wonderful family with whom I am really close, and spend a great deal of time with them.  I love my work, and I have much I want to accomplish.

Speaking of which, what are  some of your other goals and accomplishments as DA?

My goal is to create a world-class District Attorney’s Office that does the work of keeping San Francisco and her residents safe. I’m very proud that we significantly increased the conviction trial rate for felonies. The year before I arrived it was at 62 percent and we’ve increased that to 79 percent. There was a significant backlog of homicide cases in this office, and we have reduced it by more than 60 percent. For the first time in the history of this office, I created a child assault unit, and we have created a subdivision in our unit that focuses on children as victims and witnesses of crime. We also created an environmental unit that prosecutes environmental crime -- which so often severely impacts immigrant communities and communities of color.  We have also been reaching out to communities through legal clinics. Instead of waiting for them to come to us, we take our show on the road to the different neighborhoods so residents can learn how we can help them.