San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins says she hopes people struggling with addiction can find their way to treatment without law enforcement.
With the 2024 elections looming and fatal drug overdoses soaring, top Democrats have taken increasingly aggressive measures to disrupt untenable conditions on San Francisco’s streets. Gov. Gavin Newsom sent the California National Guard and state police into the city to crack down on open-air drug markets and directed local officials to enforce the “damn laws.” And Mayor London Breed directed her police department to not only arrest drug dealers but to also arrest people using drugs in public.
At the center of these efforts is District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who repeatedly has said that though she hopes people struggling with addiction can find their way to treatment without law enforcement, police intervention can be a useful tool.
Jenkins reiterated this stance at a recent forum, but for many the only takeaway was her comment that homeless people in San Francisco “have to be made to be uncomfortable.” What got lost in the ensuing barrage of criticism was that Jenkins was referring specifically to the idea that encampment sweeps could persuade people who repeatedly refuse shelter and services to accept those offers. She also said that in an ideal world, “the recourse is obviously outside the criminal justice system.”
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I interviewed Jenkins a few weeks before the recent controversy, and she was similarly nuanced — and surprisingly candid — about the inefficacy of Breed’s approach to dealing with drug users.
“To be honest, I do not believe that thus far, it has been effective,” she told me. “I won’t hide from that.”
But, Jenkins said, this didn’t mean the strategy should be scrapped.
“Do I think that (drug users) should be cited and arrested? Absolutely,” she said. “Because I think there has to be a disruption in the behavior. You have to make them understand that behavior is not acceptable. … You have to make that behavior uncomfortable for them.”
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Herein lies San Francisco’s conundrum.
City leaders have to enforce the laws because if they don’t, they are effectively condoning the existence of open-air drug markets. This historic permissiveness has contributed to a sense among some San Francisco residents that it’s easier to sell fentanyl on city streets than it is to open a lawful business.
Yet enforcing the laws doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference.
San Francisco police made 1,749 arrests and citations from May 30 through Dec. 11 under Breed’s directive — 788 for drug use and 556 for drug sales, according to figures the department provided me. But as of Nov. 30, only 12 people had accepted offers of treatment, according to Breed’s office.
Unless the person cited or arrested had an outstanding warrant — of which there were 408, according to the police department — an individual detained for drug use may have only spent a few hours in jail or not have been booked at all.
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Some defendants are routed into San Francisco’s collaborative courts, an alternative to incarceration that provides robust behavioral health treatment, services and supervision. But many aren’t taking advantage of this programming.
Jenkins bundles charges for defendants with at least two drug citations and refers them to the Community Justice Center, a collaborative court focused on the Tenderloin, South of Market, Union Square and Civic Center neighborhoods. But as of Nov. 30, according to her office, most of the 18 defendants with bundled charges hadn’t shown up to the alternative court and had open bench warrants.
Defendants who complete the program typically see their charges dropped. But participation is voluntary, and because many of the charges are low-level to begin with, there isn’t much incentive for participants to see the programming through.
In 2022, 444 individuals were enrolled in the Community Justice Center and just 69 graduated, according to figures provided to me by the San Francisco Superior Court, which noted that most clients are enrolled for several years before graduating.
Meanwhile, in the first 11 months of this year, San Francisco logged 752 accidental drug overdose deaths — more than it did in all of 2020, formerly the deadliest year on record.
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“It’s hard not to feel defeated. It really is,” Jenkins told me.
“I came in a year ago to try to use the criminal justice system as a vessel to intervene in this situation, but as of now, that’s not working. And so it is incumbent upon public health at this point to get creative about what more can be done outside of the criminal justice system.”
“But,” she added, “there has to be some mechanism, particularly for the repeat offenders … that assists us in having the teeth — the leverage — to compel or propel them into treatment.”
Such changes, Jenkins noted, will likely have to come from the state Legislature.
In recent years, state lawmakers eager to reform the criminal justice system have made more defendants eligible for behavioral health diversions. But, Jenkins said, they’ve failed to develop the robust infrastructure and invest in the highly trained workforce that would make such programs successful.
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“There’s this aura of helping people with mental illness,” she added, “yet nothing to undergird what it takes to actually treat them.”
In March, California voters will weigh in on a ballot measure sponsored by Newsom that would require counties to reallocate some of their existing mental health funding to housing people with severe behavioral health needs. It would also authorize $6.4 billion in bonds to build behavioral health facilities at all levels of care, from locked psychiatric facilities to community-based clinics.
But, even if voters approve the measure, it likely will take years to see measurable results.
In the meantime, it’s absurd for us to debate whether laws should be enforced. The real question is how we can craft laws that hold people accountable while also ensuring they partake in effective, data-driven programming with the necessary infrastructure to help them succeed.
Because right now, we aren’t doing either. San Francisco’s mounting death toll, and persistently grim street conditions, are proof.
Reach Emily Hoeven: emily.hoeven@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @emily_hoeven
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