Supes vote to shut jail by November
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 101 Tuesday to mandate the closure of County Jail No. 4, the seismically unsafe jail on the top floor of the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant Street, by Nov. 1.
The final vote from the board accelerated the widely held goal of closing the jail, which has been beset for years by crumbling infrastructure and frequent sewage overflows that have prompted flurries of lawsuits from inmates.
Last year, Mayor London Breed set a July 2021 deadline for moving the thenroughly 300 inmates at the jail out of the Hall of Justice, along with hundreds of city staffers who work there. But amid the coronavirus pandemic — which especially threatens incarcerated people and others clustered together — closing County Jail No. 4 took on new urgency.
The legislation mandating the accelerated closure was authored by Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer. The lone dissenting vote Tuesday came from Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who said, “In closing County Jail 4 early, we must be able to demonstrate that we aren’t putting victims of crime — particularly domestic violence and sexual assault victims — at risk. At this moment, I don’t believe” the legislation does that, she said.
Fewer’s legislation requires the city’s Sentencing Commission, made up of representatives from the city’s criminal justice system, to guide the expansion of pretrial diversion programs and collaborative courts for people who qualify for them.
It also calls on San Francisco Superior Court officials to “address lengthy courtcase processing” and to avoid unnecessary continuances that can extend the time inmates spend behind bars, and on the Sheriff’s Department to find ways to expedite the booking process.
San Francisco’s jail population has decreased steadily in recent years, thanks in part to an expansion of pretrial diversion programs, an overall reduction in violent crime and reforms enacted to prevent people from staying in jail because they can’t afford bail.
That reduction has helped make the closure a smoother process, leaving fewer inmates to transfer to other San Francisco lockups before County Jail No. 4 closes for good.