Violence in SF prisons was predictable. Municipal leaders lack the will to act

In April, after several incidents in which eight San Francisco Sheriff's Office deputies and staff were injured by inmates, the county's jails were closed. At a news conference in the days following the incidents, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto spoke to reporters in front of two poster-sized photographs. One showed a large red bite mark on a deputy's arm, where an inmate allegedly bit off two layers of clothing. The other was a baseball-sized dent on the back of a deputy's head after being slammed onto the jail floor.

The lockdown has drawn attention to a surge in violence within prisons and the lack of deputies to deal with it.

The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs' Association union said last year there were 240 inmate fights, 70 more than in 2022, and attacks on deputies increased from 120 to 220. At the same time, the number of deputies in prisons has decreased. In March 2023, when the prison population was around 800 people, there were 298 deputies. A year later, the prison population increased to about 1,100, but assistant staff decreased to 285.

Miyamoto told the editorial board that prisons were only 78 percent staffed.

At an Oversight Board hearing on the lockdowns earlier this month, everyone — lawmakers, Miyamoto, the deputies' union, the public defender's office and Inspector General Terry Wiley — agreed that the lack of Staffing at the sheriff's office was problematic.

And yet there seems to be little political will to do anything about it.

The degrading and dangerous living conditions in municipal prisons were a completely predictable phenomenon. As Mayor London Breed stepped up the city's efforts to crack down on drug dealing and public drug use, those arrested had to go somewhere. That somewhere – even if only for a day or two – is prison.

How can we deal with a growing prison population when all city departments are experiencing severe staffing shortages and nationally there is a decline in the number of applicants for public safety jobs? Hiring sheriff's deputies in San Francisco takes a lot of time, as we've written. The sheriff's office has one full-time and one part-time recruiter. The San Francisco Police Department has more than a dozen.

Once applicants for sheriff's deputy positions are found, there are written and oral tests, physical exams, personal history questionnaires, a psychological exam and a polygraph test. Recent efforts to streamline the process have condensed the testing period to one day, but since our November editorial on the office's hiring process, the frequency of such testing has increased from monthly to quarterly.

The reason? According to Miyamoto, the bureau's investigators are too overloaded to handle a new pool of applicants every month. Nine full-time and two part-time staff members are dedicated to background checks. They interview candidates' former employers, colleagues and family members. This is a thorough process, and it should be; no one should be given a gun or put in charge of detainees without being thoroughly vetted. Lack of staff to conduct background investigations is hampering matters. Fewer than a dozen people are completing more than 90 background checks, with another 70 waiting. A new round of tests in June will provide more.

The situation is so desperate that Sheriffs' Association Deputy President Ken Lomba told us he wants the Sheriff's Office to bring in private companies to help speed up the background investigation process – This is the first time we've heard a union leader advocate for outsourcing union jobs.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, meanwhile, at this month's hearing asked whether it was possible to place background checks on police, sheriff's deputies and 911 operators under the jurisdiction of the city ​​human resources department.

The sheriff said he was skeptical that it would provide the solutions his supporters hoped for. Some of the substantive work happens in person, so outsourcing it to HR or a private company would still require some involvement from one's office. Finding contractors to perform background checks who do not have existing relationships with the city can be time-consuming.

We recognize that the solutions are not obvious, but that does not justify inaction. As efforts continue to strengthen the police department and a new state-of-the-art 911 call center is celebrated, city politicians appear more focused on visibly helping all public safety agencies outside of the office of the sheriff – like Supervisor Catherine Stefani's recent charter amendment. proposal to lower the retirement age for certain firefighters.

Once a person is arrested, there must be a fully functioning prison system to hold them safely. Beyond the moral duty to protect prison staff and those under government surveillance, violent prisons are a source of criminal recidivism, abuse, and prosecution.

When asked whether San Francisco should send large numbers of people to jail if we can't guarantee we can keep them or sheriff's deputies safe, the mayor's office didn't offer much of comfort.

“Ultimately, the mayor is committed to working with federal and state police and law enforcement to keep the streets safe,” mayoral spokesperson Jeff Cretan told the Editorial Board . “That means arrests. This is something the mayor is committed to continuing.

If San Francisco wants to fight crime, the sheriff's office is an essential part of it. Spending money and energy on prisons is not politically popular. This editorial board would certainly prefer to use the city's meager resources elsewhere. But without these investments, city leaders will simply follow San Francisco's great tradition of paying lip service to criminal justice policy change without undertaking the hard work of building safe infrastructure to support it.

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