STANDING TALL

Criminal justice advocate Steven Medeiros is taking life's challenges in stride.

- LINDSAY TUCKER

On a breezy late-May afternoon in Berkeley, California, Steven Medeiros stands atop a craggy peak in Indian Rock park, a popular bouldering and hangout spot that overlooks the San Francisco Bay skyline. With a denim jacket flung across his shoulder and the wind in his face, the 42-year-old looks more like an Avenger or a GQ cover model than a UC Berkeley student. In a few weeks, Medeiros, who lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 25, will travel to Honolulu for a summer gig working on the ACLU of Hawaii’s Smart Justice Campaign, a national criminal justice initiative that aims to reduce the prison population and address prosecutorial accountability. An activist and advocate for police accountability and prison reform, Medeiros is pursuing a master’s degree at Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy (ranked one of the country’s best) so he can effect change from the inside by helping to reimagine current systems and structures.