consequence for that should be. jail can never be a answer to that he question. it's all restorative in nature ~. in just one calendar year we saw 700 cases through that process. that was a significant reduction in court time and in jail time for many of those people. in addition to that, we have implemented an alternative sentencing planner. an individual that reviews cases with the specific purpose of trying to find a sentence that will seek a crime other than jail and other than prison. and in that work we have seen tremendous results in a quick review of 30 cases that the alternative sentence planner had looked at. of the 30 the initial offer had been prison. at the end of that nobody was sent to prison. so, we see a real changes in the way our office is conducting business and how that impacts the rest of the stream in criminal justice. and beyond that in the coming year, we're looking to create a pretrial tool, an assessment tool to help us understand who needs to remain in custody during the pretrial portion of

their case. you heard the public defender mention that a vast majority of people are in there for bail. there is also cases where we advocate for somebody to remain in custody and perhaps they are a low risk. but without a tool to help us assess what risk somebody is to the community is very difficult to make an informed decision about who should remain in custody during the pendency of their case. we're looking to use some more science and data to do that work in a more elegant and narrow fashion. and i think we'll see some pretty significant results if we're able to get that project underway as 70% of our jail population is pretrial. that is obviously the biggest place to look for reductions. i just want to point out that in 2006 the situation was much different. chief still made some very good points about the fluid nature of things in the state. the good news is things are trending towards more local control. what we see for more local control is we have a tendency to reduce the number of people

we incarcerate and to find alternatives to that type of sentence for criminal activity. and i think we'll probably see more of that control return to us as we're now since june and july responsible for hearing the -- conductling the parole hearingsv that were previously handled by the state. [speaker not understood] the decision in sada and others come into full effect, i think we'll see greater impact of those decisions on us as a locality and more opportunity to create the types of policies and programs that we as a community all support and will lead to further reductions. so, i think we see where the trend line is and it may be a bit early to jump into a conclusion without a bit more information and time to understand what's happening here. we're happy to continue to be a partner in this dialogue and continue work with our partners at finding ways to make san francisco the safest big city without having the biggest jail. >> thank you very much, ms. [speaker not understood]. unless there are any questions, i think what we're going to do is we're going to begin our

public comment to make sure that we hear from folks. and i know that there's a number of community partners that are also here to speak as part of that. so, let me begin by calling on folks to come up. and if you can please as i call your name, if you can line up on the aisle to our left, your right. so, if i may begin with machaela davis from the aclu. jennie friedenbach from the commission on homelessness. [speaker not understood] prigeners with children. [speaker not understood] thomas from drug policy alliance. ~ prisoners with children please go ahead. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i want to thank you, supervisor campos ask your staff, for holding this hearing and the rest of the committee for hearing this important issue ~. my name is machaela davis. i'm an attorney at the aclu and we are committed to focusing on alternative to incarceration to address the socioeconomic issues faced by poor communities and communities of

color both here and around the state. we are please today see the budget and legislative analyst report give a reasonable projection for the number of needed beds. however, we still think the city should look skeptically at any decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars out of the general fund and ask whether that money could be used to reduce the demand for those jail bed in the first place. any numbers of studies show the money invested in alternative to incarceration and rehabilitation on the front end reduces the need for jail beds in the back end. we need to be investing in rehabilitation supportive housing, mental health services and education that will lower recidivism and lower crime rate and reduce the need for those beds. when you add the returns from those investments to the benefits that can be realized by the expanded diversion programs in the city, it remains to include whether we need the scale down facility. importantly, i think, though, the budget analyst report provides a good starting faint 230erth analysis to our alternative to incarceration.

i think it's only the beginning. as has been pointed out today, we need to take a comprehensive look at how our pretrial program has been functioning. the budget report state that had there is about 1,000 people on currently participating in those programs at any given time. we're please today see that. there are a thousand people at any one time in jail that are too poor to pay bail. as data da's office just said, they don't feel like they have the proper tool to make those decisions so we really need to work together to make sure all the agencies are coming together to have the right information to make pretrial release decisions. we also think that as chief still has noted, the city is coming together in a pcp and the reentry and the sentencetion commission, we have all of our stakeholders together working on comprehensive criminal justice plan. the discussion for need for more beds any beds needs to happen in the context of increased diversionary programs and discussion on front end investment to keep our communities safe. thank you. >> thank you so much. next speaker.

i'm going to call a few more people. laura magnoni. rome a guy. hanna mason. harriet sebastian. emilie harris. hi, my name is jennifer friedenbach, executive director of the coalition on homelessness. i think we can all agree we want fewer people incarcerate and had we want to make sure that those who are incarcerated have humane conditions. i really pleav we can utilize this debate as an opportunity to correct the poor harms san franciscans face. step back and look at not only how many can be diverted from the criminal justice after arrest but prevent people from being arrested in the first place. in my work at the coalition on homelessness we see people who end up in the criminal justice system simply as a result of their status of being poor. as being poor people of color, as poor people who have nowhere to live who perhaps suffer from mental illness or addictive disorders, and people who are considered repeat offenders for

being so offensive [speaker not understood] arrest in public. other people who are so desperate forest that they are forced to break into buildingses and sleep or desperately hungry they steal food. we know as has been studiously demonstrated repeatedly that we save huge and criminal justice costs when we invest in substance abuse treatment. we know investmentses in supportive housing saves criminal justice costs. we know nationally increasing number of people are being locked up who are suffering from mental illness and that in fact mentally ill people are being warehoused in our jayv. in fact, we're seeing rising numbers of jail people suffering from mental illnesses while jail populations are decreasing. we also know that inmates who have been homeless or those who report episode of homelessness any time in the year before makeup about 15% of the u.s. jail population or 7 to 11 times the estimated homeless people in the population. a few years ago when we looked at san francisco, 27% of our inmates are homeless. i'm hoping we can look at this

as an opportunity. just think of how we could invest that money, which is at least 27 million a year just in the bond service, in doing a lot more. we could estimate -- we can make major contributions in substance abuse treatment and supportive housing -- >> thank you. there are a lot of possibilities. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. may name is dorsey [speaker not understood] and i'm executive director of legal services for prisoners with children. and i think that we're going through a paradigm shift where we really reduce the numbers and we need to guard on that. i did write a public statement. i find my testimony here to be extremely uncomfortable because i generally respect the man occupying the office of sheriff. i have heard him speak on many occasionses and have walked away feeling a sense of great pride that san francisco has chosen such a remarkable person.

however, on this issue of building a new jail, i think that he is selecting to line up on the wrong side of history in our current day needs. very much like other elected officials of old who chose to fight the poor conditions of slavery and not for its abolition. one day history will judge, should we have chose to fight -- should we have chose to have fought harder, to dismantle institutions that can so easily be identified as vessel of racism? over half the peopleses caged and chained are african americans in the city, where our presence and future does not look bright. i know that we are not here to talk about race, but it is hard to talk about cages and chains in this county and in this country without raising the obvious. perhaps we should ask the fundamental question. if not now, when? when is it an appropriate time

not to build a jail? i read the report and did -- and it suggested that thing that make me wonder why are we here. i'm not used to showing to fight construction of jail when you have so many favorable circumstances not to build a jail. we are not currently not here because the jail is overcrowded. we are not calling for construction of the jail because of our abnormal peak in crime. we are not calling for a jail because crime is on the upward trend. >> thank you. we are not calling for a jail because the dar, the public part of probation department is saying they're going to use it more. >> thank you. i'm going to read a few more names. (applause) >> jimmy lloyds. veronika shepherd. terry anders. [speaker not understood]. charles minister. next witness, please.

[speaker not understood] co-president of the harvey milk lgbt democratic club. first of all, thank you for having this discussion and enabling the community to participate in this. i think the decision reflects our values and our priorities as a community, and i encourage members of the board of supervisors ~ to be very thoughtful on this. san francisco has been a model for many years in taking a public health approach to drug rather than a criminal justice approach. you heard that even from our own police chief today, and the results are documented in the report that you have in froth of you. and i want to emphasize that the number of people that we choose to keep in a cage because of their drug use is very much an issue that is in our control locally. the numbers have dropped because of changes in policy and changes in policing practices here. we can continue to prioritize health and community-based approaches, restorative justice approaches and harm reduction approaches and continue to bring those numbers down.

the approaches have been shown time and again to produce better results for families, communities, and neighborhoods and the cost the taxpayer less. i particularly want to highlight the lead law enforcement approaches to diversion program which is referenced on page 19 of the report. it's been incredibly effective in seattle. it's now very popular both with business owners, with police, with community members in giving police the discretion to divert people pre-booking before they get booked into the services that they need. we can invest in our health services and our community and further reduce our jail population. we can use these sorts of evidence-based effective approaches. and we owe it to our community to try those approaches first. before we start building more cages. in particular, for people whose primary reason for engaging with the criminal justice system is a health condition. whether that's mental health or drug use. i want to thank the community members for their leadership in

[speaker not understood] raise this issue. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. good afternoon, mr. chairman. laura [speaker not understood] representing the friends service community [speaker not understood]. healing justice in our san francisco office. the person who was supposed to represent us today is sick with the flu and she has a much better historical basis than i can give you in two minutes, but i can say that the american friends service committee has been working ~ to prevent more jails from being built in this town for decades. and the struggle is clearly not over. if you simply address the 70% pretrial part of the problem, you would not need a new jail. it's easy to see the numbers are represented right in that statistic. and if, indeed, the district attorney's office is working on a tool to assess the capability of releasing more people pretrial, if that study should

be done in time for you to redirect this decision and redirect these monies, it always comes down to a matter of priorities. and i know that the sheriff will say that the monies to build capital investment money is not the same thing as operation money and you can't just take it out of one pot and put it in another. but the reality is a lot of this is coming from the general fund and the reality is that all the time we're spending talking about this today and in other things is timely not able to keep on developing these very robust programs that san francisco has been doing such a great job on. i'm a native san franciscan and i'm incredibly proud of how we've done, really better than any county in the state. with realignment and using pretrial and alternatives to incarceration. so, why don't you stay in that place and keep investing in that way. if we are 50% of the people in the jail are african-american and we have a 7% african-american population in this town that is shame 68 and we really have to do something about it. ~ shameful

>> thank you very much. i do want to make a brief comment about our next speaker and i am very lucky i live in a district that is very engaged and people are very active and i'm very appreciative that roma guy who is a district 9 resident has been making sure that on this issue that we analyze and that whatever decision is made that it's driven by facts. so, i really appreciate that. ms. guy. thank you very much, supervisor. and thank you, all three of you, for agreeing to hold this hearing. i know that it originally was controversial, but nevertheless i think with analysis and evidence we can see that this direction is san francisco model is working. and if you give us the next two years or 15 months, whatever you want, we will give you evidence by enhancing what already works, whether it's community services center, behavioral court, or whatever. that is what's cost-effective. the numbers are there and the outcomes are there with

evidence. it's not just disney land. the other thing in terms of the report on page 7, why not while we're waiting -- we have the capital people look at if we don't build a new -- if we build a jail at another site, why aren't we moving up the rest of the facility priority for the hall of justice to move the staff and traffic court or whatever it is, to move them out by 2019 with capital money since we don't really need it for the jail, buy the building, whatever you want. but get them out. it's unsafe, and that's the right thing to do. in the meantime, we need to enhance and reduce -- and we have a real financial

possibility of going ahead and not rebuilding the jail at half the cost. another cost factor is that it is not true that there's no impact on this capitalization on the general fund. the interest rate, 15%? that come out of the general fund. you're paying for it. we need that money for alternatives. secondly, the mental health --v >> if you can wrap up. -- can you paid in the community by making eligible medi-cal -- former inmates -- >> thank you. eligible for medi-cal and older inmates eligible for medicare. >> thank you. in prison they are not eligible. >> thank you. that is funded by the general fund. >> next speaker, and i have a few more names. monroe la fontaine. roberta moore. donald wilmet.

and michael lion. good morning, my name is emilie harris and i'm the statewide coordinator for californians united for a responsible budget and i want to thank you all for having this hearing. i just wanted to point out, i know we've been -- i've been up here several times over the last few months talking about not wanting to build this new jail and wanted to appreciate that just over a few months we've talked about building a smaller jail to building an even smaller jail to even a possibility of building no jail. and i am here with lots of people in the room and in the overflow room who support no jail and wanted to talk a little bit about the fact that the report that we were discussing today doesn't include any alternatives that are not law enforcement control. so, the diversion projects run by the sheriff and the da, so it doesn't take into account if we were to build mental health programs, drug treatment or affordable housing outside of the criminal justice system. so, i would like to propose that we change the question

today. instead of is the jail a cost-effective approach to addressing violence and harm in our city, but instead think about what would it take -- what if we were making a plan today to reduce the prison -- the jail population by 600 in the next year. what would we be investing that $600 million in? what would be the programs? what if we weren't able to put any of that money into cages. and i think that we have that expertise in the room. the fact that the district attorney and the probation officer are standing up with us saying that it's too soon, we need to -- there is a possibility of no jail. we hope that you will take that into consideration and stop the jail proposal immediately. and finally, i have a petition that those of us who have been working on starting the jail have been circulating that includes hundreds and hundreds of signatures of residents in san francisco, folk who weren't able to be here who also

strongly oppose the new jail plan that we want to give over to you all today. >> thank you. next speaker. hill owe, my name is hanna mason and i'm with californians unite toeder r a responsible budget also doing social work right now. ~ i am opposed to the jail and just wanted to reiterate that as we've heard, mental health and substance abuse treatment programs need to be expanded and have proven to be more effective and cheaper for people to do before they would be in jail in the first place. we need to really look at the way to expand diversion programs, probation, behavioral health court, thing like that, pretrial release, and really looking at those things that haven't all been outlined in the report. there have already been so many tactics that led to the decrease in jail population. and i think that san francisco is clearly a leader in that regard and we need to continue

to be a leader by not building more spaces to incarcerate people. history has shown in california that when we build more jails, we fill them up. and i think that the pressure on the city of not having -- of having less jail space and having to look for alternatives is a really healthy pressure to continuing to decrease our jail population. i think that the recommendation from the board of state and community corrections to not give san francisco money to build a new jail is also a continued additional evidence that this jail project doesn't make sense for our city. thank you. >> next speaker, please. good afternoon, supervisors and guests. i'm harriet sebastian. i'm 81 years old. my son was 10 years old and was

arrested coming home from a birthday party with his 9 year old sister. we don't need another jail. there's new economic systems that are going around the country, privatize the jails. the sheriffs are responsible by a contract to keep them 90% full. so, what does that mean to the black man? come on now. you can figure it out. since the 1600s, black people made the products at the great cost of their lives. now they no longer make the products. they are the products. the young black males are an endangered species and should be treated as such. we have some of the most brilliant innovative minds in the world here in san francisco. let's use this economic problem

without harming anyone. i would be happy to discuss with some economic ideas for you in case you don't know any or you don't care about any. but in case you still want to build more jails, at least hire the black males to help build their new homes where they will live by hook or crook until they are old. california is the second-largest prison system in the world. $9 billion a year is spent. it is a crime to be black and broke. because the bogeyman will get you. (applause) >> thank you. thank you. i'm going to read a few more names. reverend glenn da hope.

[speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. penny showner. thank you, president campos, committee member. my name is jimmy [speaker not understood] and i am the vice-chair of the congress of african-american organization which represents approximately 15 african males and afro centric organizations in san francisco. the last speaker very eloquently described how many of us feel about a new jail. but let me speak a little bit to the issue of jobs and affordable housing for african americans in san francisco. i live in district 9. i see those google buses every day. i don't see black folk getting on them buses. what's important to us is that google stop and pick some of us up in district 9 and district 10 and district 5. if they do those things we can reduce the jail population. you've heard from others today with regard to the notions about substance abuse treatment, mental health services. we know those things were

pretrial diversion. i remember in 1976 when i used to work with will young, i know he doesn't want me to tell folks that, but we worked together to address the issues of substance abuse and mental health as it relates to people going to jail, getting foedctiontion out of jail and into pretrial diversion. ~ folks it is critical and essential that we have pretrial diversion and the other community based organizations that we've heard describe today. it is also critical and essential that housing, affordable housing, the mayor talked about 30,000 affordable units, market rate and below market rate, below market rate is too expensive for young black people in san francisco. it is not possible for us to live here. we need to find a way to address jobs, and we need to find housing and we need to continue the efforts that we have made in san francisco to be a leader. bail reform is critical and essential. the sheriff, probation department, district attorney's office, those folks, the mayor and others need to sit down and figure out how we do bail reform and make sure the folks can get out of jail once they

get into that environment or not go to jail at all. thank you. >> thank you very much, sir. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon. excuse me, i'm fighting a cold. my name is very konica shepherd. i'm a director of community partnership with the bayview health and wellness center. however, i stand here today in a whole different note as a voice of poor black people in the bayview hunters point community. our community as you know that has high rates of disparity across the board. what's sad to me is 6% of the population of black people that live here, 56% of them are inmates in our jails. i could go on and on with data as you already know, but i'm concerned as aes are department of the city of san francisco who was born and raised here and to have four generations of my family still in this community and the desire to build a jail that costs $290 million is absolutely nonsensical to me.

nonsensical because this wonderful city, which is one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, has a huge gap for poor people to ascertain affordable housing. last week, as the mayor spoke on the state of the city, he talked at the naval hunters point shipyard, he spoke of the eloquent housing shortage and the crisis that threatens to choke our economic growth and prosperity. he he talked about the shortage of how it affected working and middle income people. but i didn't hear him talk much about the working poor or the below poverty level people like myself who can't afford to live in san francisco. the people who you have incarcerated are the men and women of these families that they have to come home to. it just seems to me that we're doing gentrification again. we did it in the mission, we did it in the fillmore, and now the bayview.

black people, poor people, and mentally ill people are being fed up to fill the populations of jails that you want to build. ~ set up you want to take us out of one home and put us into your $290 million home. is this the economic growth and prosperity in the bayview we're looking forward to? >> thank you. thank you, ma'am. thank you. i hope we can make a change. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> next speaker, please. (applause) thank you. my name is charles minster. i'm a member of the senior and action and disability and california alliance retired americans. i was going to make a suggestion to the sheriff if you wanted to have people to fill an expanded jail, you could take the pady wagons and go down here on montgomery street to chase bank, bank of america, wells fargo, citibank.

you have folks down there who stole trillions and go up the street to the real estate association just a couple blocks from here. probably walk them over to the jail. there's plenty of people in this city who have stole trillions of dollars out of the pockets of this country and the world and none of them are going to jail. come on now. supervisor mar, i want to thank you. i know you stood with me on the picket lines to defend the sf8. and, you know, the s.f.8, they were seniors like myself, all black. one of them worked in this building for 25 years and they were going to jail. i spent a year in there on $2 million bail because they were black and they stood up for their rights. so, i know that's what they want to do here because believe me, there's going to be upsurge in this society when the economic collapse occurs. people are right now chomping at the bit. i've been chomping at that bit

for 40 years because something has to be done in this society to end this disparity in wealth. and that's going to happen. that's what they want a new jail for and also to keep the sheriffs occupied and hired. they're building a bureaucracy little big he. we don't need a new jail in this town. we need jobs, we need housing, health care. that's where we can put this money. it's unconscionable to think about building a jail at this time. thank you. (applause) >> [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood] block. raphael sperry. adrian sky roberts. [speaker not understood] leon, laurel butler. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is mindy kener. i work with anders and anders foundation. [speaker not understood]. whatever happens with the jails, we would like reentry clients to