By C1 Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — Jails in California are being forced to reassess their missions due to realignment, and one official hopes that facilities look to the San Bruno building in San Francisco as a model.
The SF Examiner reports that San Francisco’s inmate population as a whole has been on the decline, due to efforts focused on restorative measures. Violent offenders are jailed while low-level offenders are put into alternative programs.
The Sheriff’s Department puts the local recidivism rate at below 50 percent, though they did not have an exact number. The rate is believed to have dropped 20 percent in recent years.
The jail’s programming is a multidisciplinary approach to dealing with prisoners from violence-reduction programs to mental health counseling, job training and drug treatment.
The state prison system is also cooperating with San Francisco in a program starting this year called a re-entry pod, which sends inmates who have only 60 days left in their release to serve the remainder of their time in San Francisco.
Once in the city, they are put into programs that include high school and nascent vocational classes, among others, so that upon release they are better prepared for the world outside.
The pod is the first of its kind and San Francisco was chosen because it had room, according to the Examiner. It was also selected due to its robust choice of classes and connections with community groups.