SF County Jails Overcrowded for First Time in 20 Years

If you’re convinced Mayor Lurie’s tough-on-crime approach is best for San Francisco, be careful what you wish for. Directives like his, best exemplified by D6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey’s push for 100 arrests per night, are indeed yielding results. And they aren’t good. For the first time in over twenty years, San Francisco jails are getting overcrowded. 

Jail isn’t always the answer

According to SF Standard, some 1,300 people are currently being held in a county jail with 1,236 total beds. San Francisco County Jail’s population was mostly manageable until recently. Capacity has exceeded ten percent in the two months since Mayor Lurie assumed office. And that number is expected to rise. 

It starts with cramped quarters, where the ratio of people to square footage is disproportionate. A “temporary” fix like putting mattresses on the floor, as happened the last time SF jails faced overcrowding, becomes a settled-for, permanent solution. The inmates are uncomfortable, but what does it matter? They’re criminals, bums, addicts. Nobodies. Then somebody gets sick.

Perhaps a new inmate carried it in before becoming symptomatic. Maybe a guard failed to cover his cough. If life finds a way, disease is sure to follow. It’s inevitable. Our warm-blooded, animal bodies are vectors for viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites. And it’s likely the people getting taken in off the streets suffer at least one. Then it spreads from one cell to the next, one cell block to another, from inmate to guard to child to classmate to Muni driver and so on. 

Overcrowded prisons are perfect breeding grounds for lethal old-school diseases like measles and pertussis. These highly contagious diseases are recapturing their foothold in a population where many are suspicious of life-saving vaccines. Look at Texas and see what that ignorance has resulted in. Overcrowding is hazardous to life. Vaccinations work miracles, but they cannot make overcrowding tolerable.

Lastly: it’s absolutely ludicrous to assume drugs aren’t available behind bars. One is inclined to distrust inmates, but my suspicions lie with the guards. Enough stories of bad cops and busted smuggling rings make the news that it should be common knowledge. Recidivism simply moves a user from one market to another. 

Ethical failings, technical difficulties

I could slap Lurie and Dorsey for how weak-willed, thoughtless and short-sighted they’re being. Not only is it despicable to overcrowd jails and prisons, it marks the first step towards complete dehumanization. It would be noble to assemble street teams of physicians trained to administer antipsychotics, anti-seizure meds, Buprenorphine for opioid withdrawals. But we live in a time where such compassionate measures get twisted into evidence of leniency. And the city’s current politicians are too cowardly to buck prejudice. They’d rather send America the message that Liberal San Francisco is dead: the boys in blue are back in town. 

Ethically concerning as this is, the technical failings will give you a headache. When a homeless person gets dumped at an ER, they receive treatment and are dismissed, like any other patient. The crucial difference is that most patients can return for medication refills and follow-ups. What about those who can’t—people suffering from mania or withdrawal, or both? They’ll fall through the cracks of a system designed for insured, paying patients—people with homes. People cycle through Emergency Rooms, between shelters, jail and the streets, and we expect them to show up for appointments.

An outcome seen miles away

When DA Brooke Jenkins took office in 2022, she shunned diversion programs for drug-related offenses in favor of mass convictions. Her Draconian swerve to the conservative right gave San Francisco a taste of what was to come. County Jail flirted with hitting capacity last year, drawing criticism for the glaring lack of communication and follow-through with SFPD. Assistant Director Ursula Choice works at Bayview Hunters Point Foundation, offering help with alcohol and opioid detox. People working directly with the community know exactly what they need, and jailtime is not on the list. 

“This is going to make jails overcrowded again,” Ms. Choice presciently told Mission Local. “This is a behavioral health issue. And so, having services and access points to treat such behavioral health issues is the correct answer, not handcuffs and jail cells for nonviolent offenses, such as having a substance use disorder.” 

City Hall is playing a dangerous game of chicken with illness, food shortage, increased violence, and death at County Jail. And it’s the already vulnerable whose lives are at risk.