Boudin, 39, has said growing up with incarcerated parents motivated him to study law and reform the criminal justice system . In 2002, the Yale grad and Rhodes scholar told the Guardian: “Growing up in a household where people have a political consciousness, where people think and care deeply about political issues has an impact on you.”
Chesa Boudin’s parents were members of the far-left, anti-Vietnam war Weather Underground, which was active in the 1960s and 70s. His mother, Kathy Boudin, survived an infamous explosion in Greenwich Village, New York City, in March 1970, when members of the group accidentally detonated a bomb intended for an army ball in New Jersey.