David Onek quoted in Fort Mill Times, May 6, 2013

“I am extremely excited to lead NCIP as we work to exonerate the innocent and partner with law enforcement to change policies and practices that lead to wrongful convictions,” said Onek.

David Onek quoted in The Daily Californian, November 6, 2012

“My support for President Obama is completely separate from my employment with the UC,” said David Onek, a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law and the top individual donor to the re-election campaign from the UC…. “I can’t speculate why the UC has so many Obama supporters,” said Onek. “But it’s clear that this election is crucial for all of us.”

David Onek host of California Progress Report, July 31, 2012

“There have been around 1,000 lifers since 1990 who have been paroled for murder. Zero of them have been convicted of a new murder. And only 13 of them out of 1,000 have been re-incarcerated for any kind of new offense. Only six of those, six out of a 1,000, have been re-incarcerated for a violent or serious crime.”

David Onek host on KALW-FM, April 29, 2012

“A lot of the focus on realignment has been on reducing the state prison population, but realignment is also going to lead to enormous changes in county jails…. Now they may hold inmates for much longer periods of time and will need to develop this type of programming with relatively limited resources.”

Public Press, October 25, 2011 by Rina Palta
http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2011-10/qa-candidates-for-san-francisco-district-attorney-0

The War on Drugs has been a complete failure…. Locking people up because of an underlying mental health problem or underlying substance problem does not solve the problem whatsoever and is an extremely inefficient way to handle those problems.

The Nation, October 11, 2011 by Sasha Abramsky
http://www.thenation.com/article/163894/questions-san-francisco-da-candidate-david-onek

In California, we’ve embarked on the biggest prison-building binge in history, and we’re paying the price for it. We have what can only be described as an absolute fiscal crisis. The number-one driver of that crisis is the cost of prisons.

The New York Times, September 17, 2011 by Trey Bundy
http://nyti.ms/re4xPU

“Do you know what happens when you’re locked up?” he said. “You sleep all day and watch daytime TV. You’re watching Jerry Springer, and someone feeds you three hot meals a day. Admitting what you did, confronting your actions, hearing from a victim about the impact that things have had on them, that’s tough.”

The Bay Area Reporter, August 4, 2011 by Seth Hemmelgarn
http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=5908

Onek spoke extensively about his background, which includes examining alternatives to incarceration, and counseling “delinquent kids” at Walden House, a substance abuse treatment center. He said it’s also important to “keep the kids of today from becoming the adult criminals of tomorrow.”

-San Francisco Examiner, May 19, 2011 by Ari Burack
http://bit.ly/kBFmDw

“The death penalty does not work — I will not seek the death penalty in any circumstances,” Onek said.

-San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 24, 2011 by Sarah Phelan
http://www.bestofthebay.com/2011/05/24/fatal-stance

Onek says his stance is informed by his belief that the death penalty solves nothing. “It doesn’t make us safer; it’s not fair and equitable; and it wastes enormous resources,” he said. “We are much better off spending our precious resources on things that actually make us safer, like more cops on the streets, more programs in our communities, and better services for victims.”

SF Weekly, April 6, 2011 by Peter Jamison
http://bit.ly/exeKCH

Does Hersh’s support signal that Onek might just follow through on his vows to let some more sunshine in at 850 Bryant? “I’ll let you be the judge of that,” he says. “All I can say is that I have tremendous respect for Sy Hersh, as a person and as a journalist.”