Despite Protests, SoMa Jail Proposal Advances To Final Vote

Despite Protests, SoMa Jail Proposal Advances To Final VoteThe Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St. (Photo: Google Maps)
Brittany Hopkins
Published on December 03, 2015

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors' Budget and Finance Committee voted 3-0 in favor of a proposal to construct a new jail on Bryant between Sixth and Seventh streets. The proposal will be voted on by the full Board of Supervisors on Dec. 15th.

As previously reported, the proposal seeks to replace the existing, seismically unsound jail at the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St. with a new, 40,276-square-foot facility on the nearby property, which would be purchased for $14.5 million. The new facility would accommodate 384 maximum-security beds.

In July, the Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 to reject an appeal that both called for the project to undergo an environmental impact review and authorized the city to submit an application for $80 million in state funding to support the development. Supervisors Jane Kim, Eric Mar and John Avalos were the trio that voted in favor of the appeal and against the funding application.

Before yesterday's committee meeting, which was comprised of Supervisors Mar, Mark Farrell, and Katy Tang, more than 100 protesters rallied with signs, banners and chants against the $240 million project (whose price tag is actually $380 million including debt, the Examiner notes). They chanted "Affordable housing, not jail cells," arguing that housing and community mental health services would be better uses of the city's money. 

After more than an hour of rallying, the sheriff's department issued a dispersal order, and according to accounts on Twitter, arrested those who refused to leave the chambers. Four protesters chained themselves together with PVC piping, and had to be cut apart.

The Examiner reports that the hearing continued later yesterday afternoon, with public commenters seated in a separate viewing room and shuffled in three at a time to address the committee. Following public comments, all three supervisors voted to move the project to the full Board of Supervisors for a final vote on Dec. 15th, although Mar stated that he would vote against the project during the next hearing and Farrell hinted that a Plan B should be developed.

Before yesterday's hearing, San Francisco Attorney General George Gascón released a new study that highlighted his doubts as to whether the new jail is needed. The study, titled "Eliminating Mass Incarceration: How San Francisco Did It," was conducted with a researcher from the JFA Institute, a nonprofit that works with government agencies and foundations to "evaluate criminal justice practices and design research-based policy solutions." It found that San Francisco has reduced its jail and prison populations at a quicker pace than state and national rates.

According to the report, the rate of incarceration in the city and county of San Francisco is 279 per 100,000 people, less than half the rate for California and less than a third of the national rate. The analysis credits changes in California legislation and a slew of local initiatives enacted since 2009, like the San Francisco Reentry Council and San Francisco Sentencing Commission, as contributing factors in the decline.

"If the rest of the country could match San Francisco’s rates, the number of individuals under correctional supervision would plummet from 7 million to 2 million," the report states. "The nation’s 2.3 million people in prison and jail would decline to below 700,000, and 'mass incarceration' would be eliminated."

"Take a look at virtually any street corner in downtown San Francisco: we have a mental health treatment problem, not a jail capacity problem," Gascón stated in a press release. "As much as 40 percent of our in-custody population suffers from some degree of mental illness ... I’m very concerned, as I believe San Francisco is on the cusp of making a terrible mistake that we will look back on as wasteful and out-of-touch for years to come.”

The project is next slated to go before the full Board of Supervisors on Dec. 15th, meaning incoming District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin will be present, the Examiner adds.