By Joaquin Palomino
San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco has reduced its jail population by nearly 25% in March to create distance between inmates and staff and prevent the coronavirus from taking hold, a problem that has grown dire in other jails and prisons across the country.
On Saturday morning, there were roughly 840 people in custody in San Francisco’s jails, said District Attorney Chesa Boudin, down from about 1,100 on March 4, the day California declared a state of emergency because of the global pandemic.
While some of the inmate reduction is due to declining crime rates following the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order, criminal justice leaders in the city have been working to free inmates early and detain only the most dangerous people in response to the outbreak.
“What we’re trying to do ... is ensure that the jail is only being used for people who present such a serious risk of physical violence that they can’t be safely released,” Boudin said. “The difficult decisions that we make in the criminal justice system during this moment of crisis have the very real potential to save countless lives.”
To date, no inmates in San Francisco have tested positive for COVID-19. One guard, though, has tested positive.
The often cramped conditions in many jails have posed problems in other places. In New York City, at least 132 inmates and 104 jail staff had tested positive for the virus as of Saturday. Chicago is grappling with a similar outbreak in its jails.
San Francisco is trying to get ahead of the problem by prioritizing early release for elderly people and those who have severe underlying medical conditions. Some inmates who have served almost all of their sentence are also being considered for release, as are those detained for lower-level crimes. The courts can instead place such people on home detention or probation
Anyone who poses a risk to public safety will not be considered for early release, Boudin said.
The district attorney, the public defender and the courts are following the advice of city public health leaders, who recommended on March 24 that San Francisco keep its jail population between 700 and 800 people to protect inmates, staff and the public from an outbreak that could spread beyond jail walls.
“The most effective strategy to mitigate transmission is social distancing,” Dr. Lisa Pratt, director of jail health services, said in a letter to criminal justice leaders Tuesday. “I urge you to move quickly and creatively to continue to divert people from jail and remove incarcerated people from this dangerous congregate setting as much as possible during this time.”
Scores of staff come into San Francisco’s jails each day for work. While inmates are screened when they’re booked into the facility, the agency is unable to identify and treat asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carriers of the virus, who can pass it onto others, according to the letter.
San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said his office has worked to ready the jails to prevent the spread of the coronavirus by regularly checking on vulnerable inmates and providing everyone with hand sanitizer. Because San Francisco has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country, it has been able to more easily implement social distancing policies than other places with more crowded jails.
In a letter to San Francisco’s public defender last week, Miyamoto said the city must also consider crime victims when trying to reduce the jail population. But he told The Chronicle that the efforts so far have focused on low-level, low-risk inmates.
“We’re not releasing serious violent felons right now,” Miyamoto said. “We’re not at that point, luckily, and we won’t get to that point any time soon.”
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