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Sheriff cites rising jail population, committee approves supplemental appropriation as amended
Summary
Sheriff Hennessy told the committee that jail population growth—driven largely by drug-related and serious offenses—forced the city to reopen a small jail in San Bruno and incur overtime costs; the committee approved a fiscal-year supplemental appropriation to cover immediate staffing and overtime needs with a budget-analyst amendment reducing the jail health-services line.
San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessy told supervisors the county—s jail population has risen sharply over the past six months, forcing the department to reopen a previously closed facility and run expensive overtime to staff additional housing pods.
Hennessy said the increase followed a federal ruling that prohibited inmates sleeping on mattresses on the floor and described a roughly 2,100-inmate snapshot in which drug offenses represented roughly "in the forties" percent of the population. He also said a significant cohort of inmates (about 177) had been in custody more than a year, and about 50 had been detained more than two years; many of those longer-term cases were homicide prosecutions.
The sheriff sought a supplemental appropriation (item 10) to cover FY07/08 staffing and overtime needs at reopened San Bruno housing pods. The budget analyst recommended an amendment reducing the jail health-services appropriation by $185,501; the sheriff concurred with that amendment. The committee approved the supplemental as amended.
Hennessy and the mayor—s budget director, Nani Kallaretti, discussed strategies to reduce jail costs, including expedited case processing, expanded electronic home detention and better data systems; Hennessy said electronic-home-detention expansion and case-expediting efforts could avoid the cost of opening additional pods. The committee asked the budget analyst to produce a staffing-level report in May to inform the budget season.
Supervisors pressed for more coordinated criminal-justice data and asked law-enforcement and justice-system partners to examine why high numbers of pretrial detainees and long-pending cases remain in custody. The sheriff said he has begun meetings with the district attorney and public defender to identify cases that could be expedited or moved to alternatives to jail.
