Closing Hall of Justice jail on supes’ agenda
San Francisco supervisors will vote Tuesday on whether to close the seismically unsafe, sewageleakprone jail atop the Hall of Justice by November after a committee recommended the accelerated shutdown because of concerns over also subjecting inmates to the coronavirus.
The Board of Supervisors’
Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted unanimously to endorse the closure, which Mayor London Breed had ordered for mid2021. Many of the speakers at the hearing talked about the horrors of the jail on the seventh floor of 850 Bryant St. Some worried about the city having enough jail cells.
Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer proposed in March shutting the jail, which houses as many as 300 inmates and employs hundreds to watch and care for them, saying the dangers of the coronavirus makes the building even more dangerous.
San Francisco has long wanted to close the jail, which opened in 1961. But disputes over where to move the inmates and whether to build a new jail kept what’s known as County Jail No. 4 in use. Two other jails are located next to the Hall of Justice and another in San Bruno.
“Every city leader knows this jail needs to close,” Fewer said at a news conference Thursday before the committee meeting. “It is an endangerment to human life there.”
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Public Defender Mano Raju agreed, calling on the city to continue programs aimed at reducing the number of people sent to its four jails.
Boudin said San Francisco’s jail population has fallen to 696 inmates, making it possible to safely move the 100 to 140 still in Jail No. 4 to other facilities by November. The city’s diversion programs make it possible to keep the jail population below 1,000, he said.
“We have built a system in which incarceration is the last resort instead of the first resort,” he said.
Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, who was originally concerned about the proposal, said he now supports it after Fewer made amendments that allow flexibility in case it’s necessary to keep some inmates in Jail No. 4 to allow safe distancing if there’s a future coronavirus outbreak in jail. Fewer also agreed to drop a prohibition on new jails, she said.