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Police Commission tables resolution on Prop 83 enforcement, asks CDCR for clarification
Summary
The San Francisco Police Commission on Nov. 7 debated a resolution urging the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) to rescind policy 7048 and clarify how registrants may declare transient status under Proposition 83 ("Jessica's Law"). Commissioners voted unanimously to table the measure to Dec. 5 to gather more information and invite a CDCR representative.
The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday debated a resolution asking state corrections officials to rescind or revise a CDCR policy that, commissioners say, enables registered sex-offenders to declare themselves "transient" and thereby reduce public notification and local tracking.
Lieutenant Dan Lydon, who supervises the department—s sex-offender compliance unit, told the commission the new parole enforcement of Proposition 83 has left "virtually no place in San Francisco that a registrant would be able to reside." Lydon said state parole recently notified registrants and gave them three options: find housing that complies with Prop 83, return to prison, or declare themselves transient. "They gave the people three choices," he said, adding that 38 people had registered as transients after the state began enforcing the measure and that San Francisco has about 1,300 section-290 registrants overall.
Commissioner Veronese, who introduced the resolution, said the local concern is not the constitutionality of Prop 83 but the operational effect of CDCR policy 7048. "All we're saying is tell us where you are," Veronese said, arguing the policy could allow registrants to disappear from local notification systems and dilute Megan's Law public-notification goals.
Other commissioners and staff agreed a local tracking gap had emerged but diverged on remedies. Some favored urging CDCR to rescind the transient option or require clearer registration so the department and public retain notice. Others warned that the commission should not adopt a measure that could disproportionately displace registrants into other, often lower-resourced, neighborhoods and that constitutional issues and litigation remain pending.
The commission—s debate considered several operational details: whether transient registrants are posted publicly, whether parole violations can be enforced as arrests (staff said Prop 83 lacks a direct penal-code arrest provision and that parole violations are a separate enforcement tool), and the costs and limits of GPS monitoring. Lieutenant Lydon said transient registrants must check in every 30 days but that public-notification practices for transients were not functioning the same way as for those with an address.
Given the legal and policy complexity and concern about disparate effects on particular neighborhoods, the commission voted to table the resolution and invited a CDCR representative and expanded community outreach. A roll-call vote to continue the matter to Dec. 5 carried unanimously.
The commission—s action was procedural: the measure was not withdrawn but postponed so commissioners can receive additional legal analysis, hear from CDCR, and gather community testimony before taking a formal position.
