Closure plan revives debate over jail
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will introduce legislation Tuesday to hasten the closure of the city’s seedy Hall of Justice, a move that appears to have universal support from the Board of Supervisors.
But Lee’s plan to lease new properties for the district attorney, adult probation and other city departments will reopen a debate about where to put the roughly 350 inmates housed in the Hall of Justice’s seventh-floor jail.
Everyone seems to agree that the building at 850 Bryant St., with its sewage leaks, asbestos and rodent infestations, has outlived its usefulness. However, the supervisors have so far resisted calls by Lee and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy for a replacement jail, saying it would go against San Francisco’s progressive push to find alternatives to incarceration.
“The fact that these leases are being introduced begs the question, ‘What about those inmates?’ ” said Hennessy, who urged the supervisors years ago to fund a new stand-alone jail with 383
beds. The board unanimously rejected that plan.
Lee said that if the board votes to move the city departments to leased buildings in the South of Market and on Potrero Hill, the inmates must go as well. On Monday, he urged the supervisors to come up with an exit strategy “that addresses both staff and the jail population” and meets the city administrator’s goal of clearing out the building in 2019.
In 2015, the board torpedoed Lee’s proposal to allocate $270 million toward building a new jail. Last year, the supervisors rejected an $80 million state grant that would have helped fund the project.
Instead, the supervisors convened a working group to plan for the jail closure and said it should focus on redirecting money to mental health services and intervention programs. The group released a report in June suggesting ways to reduce the inmate population, such as adding beds in psychiatric facilities and releasing people while they await trial. It did not include a plan to replace the seventh-floor jail.
That worries Hennessy. On Monday, she sent a letter to the board, saying social programs won’t be enough to eliminate San Francisco’s jail population and that the inmates the city does lock up need to be in a better building.
She is working with city staff to create new housing at the County Jail in San Bruno so it can accommodate inmates from the Hall of Justice. She also wants to expand a smaller jail at 425 Seventh St.
Board President London Breed, who has opposed plans to build a new stand-alone jail, said Monday that she would support moving inmates to San Bruno or to other counties.
“That’s just something we’re going to have to do,” she said.
However, moving inmates out of the city raises its own issues.
“These are jobs for San Francisco deputies,” said Eugene Cerbone, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association. “Is San Francisco going to just give those jobs to other counties?”
Hennessy noted that shifting inmates to other counties means relocating them “far away from their families. And we’re sending them to places that don’t necessarily share our values.”
City Administrator Naomi Kelly sent her own letter to the board, saying conditions have steadily deteriorated over the past four years at the Hall of Justice. She urged the board to make the well-being of inmates “front and center in the exit planning process.”