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District attorney seeks crime‑analysis unit and mental‑health staffing; Manhattan DA presents arrest‑alert model
Summary
The DA asked for four crime analysts and mental‑health attorney/staff to build an analytics unit and to manage conservatorships and related hearings; Manhattan DA's Keri Chacon described an arrest‑alert system and reported large reductions in shootings in targeted precincts.
District Attorney’s Office leadership told the Budget & Finance Committee it needs new technical and clinical staffing to modernize prosecution and better serve victims and defendants with mental illness.
The DA introduced Keri Chacon, chief of the Crime Strategies Unit at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, who demonstrated an "intelligence‑driven prosecution" model. Chacon described senior prosecutors paired with intelligence analysts, a citywide arrest‑alert feed that notifies prosecutors within hours when a tracked defendant is arrested, and a focus on a relatively small set of high‑impact individuals (the unit tracked about 9,000 defendants against roughly 110,000 annual cases). Chacon credited targeted indictments and cross‑jurisdiction coordination with substantial reductions in shootings in East Harlem: "we're seeing a 76% reduction in shootings" in one targeted area following a multi‑defendant takedown.
District Attorney staff said San Francisco currently has a conservatorship caseload of roughly 750 active matters and averages about 50 5150 hearings per week across eight hospitals. Katie Miller, chief of alternative programs, said the office has one full‑time mental‑health prosecutor and a part‑time paralegal, and she requested additional dedicated mental‑health attorneys and an alternative‑sentencing planner (social‑work/clinical expertise) to handle an expected increase in workload and to improve alternatives to incarceration.
Supervisors and community members asked how an analytics unit would coordinate across Bay Area jurisdictions and how mental‑health work could be staffed at hospitals for 5150 hearings. The DA's office said it already coordinates with neighboring counties and that the proposal is intended to bring the office up to national best practices for prosecutorial data and clinical integration. Committee members accepted the DA's items for filing.
