>> good morning and welcome to the public safety committee. my name is supervisor john avalos. joining me to my right is christina olague, the vice chair, and to my left, and supervisor eric mar. the clerk is here as well as we

said miller. we have sfgtv folks who are hoping as well. madam clerk, could you share with us your announcements? >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. completed speaker cards and any documents should be completed as part of the file and submitted to the clerk. items submitted after today will appear on a july 24th board of supervisors agenda, unless otherwise stated. supervisor avalos: thank you. if you could please call number one and two. >> item number one is the hearing regarding the impact of california's public safety and realignment policy on the city of san francisco as well as the county. item number two, a resolution approving the post-release community supervision 2012 implementation plan. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. i appreciate it. i want to thank supervisor eric mar for britain these two items

before us. -- bringing these two items before us. and of course, the group and executive committee for their report as well. since the sponsor of this hearing is supervisor mar, i will yield the microphone supervisor mar: thank you -- a yield of the microphone. supervisor mar: thank you, chair of a los. i want to start with remarks by saying that a number of community-based advocacy groups from the aclu to many others have been working on this issue for decades. i think, seeing issues of crisis as an opportunity for a really important thing. a recent study by the aclu released in march called "public safety realignment california at a crossroads" analyzed 53 different programs within the

state and gave sound recommendations for policy changes. i would like to say it has been a pleasure working with our law enforcement and criminal justice organizations in the city. it has made me understand what a great model san francisco and other counties, like our media, are for -- alameda, are for the rest of the state. fresno county, for example, have been getting twice as much money, when their programs are not geared toward turning people back to their communities and keeping communities safe, but also, reducing recidivism in our communities. recent changes at the california state association of counties and various criminal justice groups, we have been able to change funding allocation. it is a little bit more fair. but much more work needs to be done. to those who do not know what is happening, this hearing is about california's new public safety

realignment policy and how that impacted san francisco programs, again, as an opportunity to improve them and show them as a model to the rest of the state. as of october 1st, 2011, the public safety realignment app has required individuals in state prison for non-island, non-serious, non-sex offender felony offenses -- again, non-a violent offenses, will be released under the responsibility of our san francisco adult probation department. and our chief, when he still, and her staff. this allows us to better understand the impact on the public of san francisco. and also, the additional responsibility that has pushed onto -- it has pushed onto our counties and various local

agencies to address the program issues. i do want to say the aclu work, aside from saying it is an opportunity, also talked about the challenges of funding in the state. and in some ways, the recommendations of increasing data gathering, and changing funding formulas to give incentives to good programs like san francisco that reduce recidivism and incarceration and give great alternatives to incarceration are really key. i also think the aclu report and other criminal justice advocates point to the crisis of the criminal justice system in our state. i am looking forward to good comments from the public and our agencies about how we address san francisco, but also california's terrible statistic that california is the highest state -- let me see. let me just read this.

california's recidivism rate as a state, which is the rate at which people are released from prison and then return, california's percentage is among the highest in the nation at 67.5%. how do we as san francisco help to be a catalyst for other counties, and the state as well? and there is the biggest financial crisis that we're seeing right now in our state. how do we use the money that comes to our state wisely so that we are being a model, but also being fiscally responsible and also keeping our communities safe. with that, we have great presentations and we are hoping for good public comment as well. i would first like to introduce our representatives from the community corrections partnership executive committee. they will be giving presentations. the first one is chief wendy stihl of the adult probation department and then cindy derrick from the district attorney's office, the public

defender's office, the department of health, our sheriff, and the san francisco police department. also joining us today as resources are a representative from the comptroller's office and their supporting tracking data. and also, tracking the outcomes of the realignment implementation. also, the committee will provide a presentation on the impact of ab 109 or the public safety act realignment within san francisco. they will also be presenting on our city and county's realignment and reaction and implementation plan. and on june 12th, i already introduced to the board of supervisors a resolution to approve this plan. hopefully, we will move that forward positively today.

the committee of each county prepares its annual plan with recommended strategies in response to a realignment. last year, our 2011 plan was approved by the board on september 29th right on time for the re-enactment, or realignment on october 1st. 2011 in san francisco with the first county in the state to approve our plan. and we're the first board of supervisors in the state seeing the plan for 2012. i think we are ahead of the curve. i know how great our programs are and hopefully we will highlight them today. i would like to invite the chief to begin the presentation. >> thank you very much, supervisors. it is a pleasure to be here before you today and to talk about public safety realignment. at first, i will start off by saying i'm proud to be in san francisco. i have been here only a little over two years, but the spirit of innovation and collaboration amongst the criminal justice partners is what has made a very

difficult, challenging situation, such as realignment, the most historic reform in california's history related to criminal justice. i would like to recognize all of the criminal-justice partners for how hard they have worked together, collaborated, negotiated, and it has been an absolute pleasure. with that, -- prior to public safety realignment ab 109, there was another piece of legislation by our own senator leno. what that really did was start the whole evidence, research- based criminal justice realignment process going. what the legislation did is created a community correctional partnership. and it is the criminal-justice partners for each county. the role of the partnership was to advise each county,

implementing community corrections, using evidence- based preparation practices. all that means, evidence based, is looking at proven methods that have worked throughout the country, throughout the different counties, and taking those and implementing them within our probation system so that we can reduce the state's prison population. that was driven by the state prison crisis. they were facing a lawsuit, and overcrowding lawsuit. and in fact, the supreme court did way and two years later and found the conditions of confinement to be unconstitutional. that is what started this whole process rolling. and also, through -- probation drop the day was seen as an untapped resource. that is really where the answer was. if you could think of it as -- as a hub to a wheel where all of the partners could come together because probation touches court, police, the d.a., public defender, and all of that. and basically, community corrections, as the legislature

sought it, was not being used as effectively as it could be. they basically -- to speak to the supervisors earlier point about creating formulas for behavior that works, sb 68 was a great example of that. every probationary that was not failed on probation and not sent to prison, there was a fiscal incentive. i am proud to say that san francisco, even though we send, we have one of the lowest car -- incarceration rates of all of the counties in sending individuals to state prison. we were able to reduce that even more. we ripple to reduce that by a total of 40% -- we were able to reduce that by april 48% since 2009. that provided the funding to enhance the services.

we decided how we would spend that money and it was 100% on services. we on housing issues, treatments issues, employment needs of education needs. a lot of the county's took that money and spend it on additional staff. we trained it on -- we train our staff on how to use better motivational techniques so they could work better with the clients. we also worked on training within the department so we could shift our culture. we have a culture within the probation department of supervising from a law enforcement perspective, not rehabilitating we were happy to teach many staff new skills and new concept, because evidence based probation, it is cutting edge. it is not like we have all been doing it for 20 years. there was cultural training and operational changes, many that had to be made. i am proud to say that we went from spending an average of $256

two years ago, to an average two years later of $133. and even in the first quarter of 2012 as compared to the first quarter when all of these efforts started -- when we started the efforts, we were sending 62 on average in that quarter. quarter one of this year, we sent 14 probation failures. and it is not that we are just not sending them. our successful probation termination rate is up, and are unsuccessful provision rate is down. and also, these efforts have contributed to dropping our prison opera -- population from 8000 individuals down to the first time in history -- well, for many years -- to under 6000. those are all statistics that are moving in the right direction. many counties are successful across the state. in fact, 6000 fewer probationers

were sent to state prison. the legislature said, it is working. we were right. what they decided to do too -- was to create this realignment between the governor and the legislature. the key elements are that it is -- an executive committee corrections partnership so that the ecp, as we call it, as it was created, basically, it took a subset of those individuals, which is the sheriff, the chief of probation, the public defender, the police department and the board of supervisors locally within each county identified each type of social service agency. and ours was the public health department. and the courts. and it's -- this created the ccp committee.

as we mentioned earlier, we were the first county in the state to actually develop hours and have it approved. but being first is not necessarily always the best. but in our case, it was. [laughter] and the reason that it was is because san francisco took a balanced approach. we did not take all our money and say, we're going to activate this. basically, we said -- we invested a significant amount of money in service dollars. and in creative and aggressive and innovative things within the public defender's office and the district attorney's office, which will be talked about mayor -- later. the sheriff will talk about those programs in her department later. basically, investment in all of these services allowed us to start realignment out with the perspective of needing to build the plan with the services. we were really successful on sb

68 we wanted to continue that success. basically, we created a plan that was a model. a lot of other counties did not know where to start. it helped other counties throughout the state take a more balanced approach. not all jurisdictions decided to invest as heavily in services as we did. but in fact, many of them did and we received many letters of approval from many counties. and did redefine many felonies. many felonies now under penal code 1178 that weapon punished -- punishable by serveing priso, now they will be served in county jail. they can be served in all jail sentences, or split between jail and mandatory supervision.