What to look for to bring somebody forward for a possibility of a court review for em. This is not Carte Blanche like i said, for the Sheriffs Department to let everybody out. This is the exception to the rule so those people who have proven in custody over the period of supervision time that they dont have behavior problems, their history, violence history is not something that would preclude them from em. Understand that all em criteria which indicates who can and cannot get on em is very strict. Thats not going to change. Thats still going to be held in place. Whats going to be added to those restrictions is if a person in the legislation has a certain low level offense, theyve proven themselves in custody, that might be something the court will want to look at to reevaluate their decision on bail or em the power is still with the judge. My understanding of the system, and this is from some of the my time working in the Law Enforcement system. When you have low level non violent offenders we have many programs where we do release those individuals without even em. At the end of the day, we have judges who make decisions based on what prosecutors brings to them, as well as the information that a public offender and criminal defense attorney brings to them and those are judges making ultimate decisions on this and youre asking us to allow the Sheriffs Department to make another layer of decisions after a judge makes that initial decision . Is that my understanding . I think looking at it that way is not accurate. What were saying is the judge at the arraignment after a person is first a regged and brought to custody, the judge makes a decision based upon the limited information known at that point, the rap sheet, history, appearance in could you repeat, that type of thing and nature of offense is taken into account and say bail is set. What the legislation calls for and what the sheriff has are tools and information that the da and court dont have on that first court date. There are at least 30 or 60 more days that the sheriff has to review, including criminal history, including sorry, the criminal history the da has all that but the Sheriffs Office does too and they have ability to look at that if you could stop there. Da has the rap sheet so what Additional Information will the Sheriffs Office have . Performance in custody. Other a 30 day period. 30 to 60 days or more, gang affiliation, programming, performance in custody, those type of issues. The persons history is pretty much known to the court and da at it is first court date. Those cases where theres a big risk or violent history within five years or other types of problems with regard to their history, theyre not forwarded to the court. Im trying to understand this. Everyone has the information on that first youre saying what the sheriffs information is what everyone can observe about an individual in the intervening time period between that arraignment, 30 days later, 60 days later. Criminal history, no. Im talking about classification, programming, behavior. The oh thing im wondering is you refer to these folks as low level offenders. Violent felony or serious felony charges would preclude evaluation under this legislation. Which i appreciate. I think for many misdemeanors are often viewed as as lower level offenses, but felonies are more serious. All right, supervisor cohen. I wanted to associate with some of the comments supervisor farrell was talking about. This seems like a meaty and substantive issue thats dropped on our desks and so i want to make sure i understand what were looking at. The sheriff is making an argument sayinging please give me the authority to petition judges, petition the court on behalf of folks that i have in custody that qualify and meet an eligibility, and i believe these are the guideline used to determine if a person will meet the eligibility requirements to qual for em, which is electronic monitoring, which is also known as home detention. And also an ankle bracelet. Correct. For the listening audience at home want to make sure were communicating here. As it stands right now the sheriff does not have that ability to petition the court, is that correct . Its for pretrial detain knees, no. And so can you explain to me for what reason he does not have that the sheriff does not have that power . Its statutory. Its statutory. And so has something changed between the previous sheriff and this sheriff or has there been some change that we are weve par sip which gives the sheriff the authority to do that with local board approval. So 12. 1203. 108, thats basically em for inmates in lieu of bail or basic legislation. This is a state law . Correct. Okay. Im see, im putting the pieces together. Theres a change in the state law locally that will change how we deal with the sheriff wants to implement that state law locally and it has to be approved by the board of supervisors. Since this is a state law are there other counties going through this process or others who have already granted this . They have the power to do that. I have not become aware of who does or doesnt. Sure. When did this state law change occur . This is an advent of ab ab 109. Good afternoon, sheriff, this is an ab event of 109 state prisoner realignment. There are many counties throughout the state of california and its not just for overcrowded reasons whatsoever, but because of the immetous thats put on mu municipalities to begin to investigate em for pretrial population because most of our jail populations throughout all urban centers i appreciate the newness of this discussion to some of the supervisors here, is that i doubt that the Adult Probation Department or even the public defender would support this legislation if in fact they thought that would increase Public Safety risk or in any way subvert the paramount concern of Public Safety, which is why they came to the move down this road. Now, if this road is too soon for some supervisors because im hearing some misinformation even in the comments that has been misunderstanding in the comments that have been shared, ill be more than happy to make sure our office gives you a briefing over however period of time so you understand what the contrast is. Theres no way shape or form that i as sheriff and that this department would want to do anything to forward any risk or compromise to Public Safety, but the notion that i heard being put out there, whether this is true in the perception or not of some, that we would unilaterally put what we are proposing is the same way that theres a response mechanism by the da and court who often asks us could we put a sex offender or somebody for child important electronic monitoring, we have the right to say no and we often do. But what weve noticed though, by the way weve said no to people being put on em, its happening anyway, a Cottage Industry has erupted that is not supervised by the Sheriffs Department and by state statute, all em for sentence population supervised by the Sheriffs Department. To allow somebody to be be put on,m even after weve rejected it, and were trying to reign that practice in. If this detail is, you know, much too much to take in here on the fly, if youd like to postpone or have it delayed and were more than happy to give a complete and full briefing. Of course wed be happy to do that. I have more questions. I think with all your work you see the Crime Statistics that president chiu rattled off. I mean, there was a shooting 30 minutes ago at third and oakdale so i am representing a part of a constituency that is on edge when it comes to Public Safety and we need to look at this from a very broad perspective, so i am not prepared to vote on it, or if we do call the vote today i think that i would be voting no because i just dont have enough information and im happy to continue this conversation, sheriff, and i am a little surprised that we werent given a briefing on this because this is a very serious topic, one that touches all of us. Now, i have one question real quick. When you say when the judge grants em and youve indicated with you dont support this decision, what kind of recourse is there . Do you in em so what were proposing is just a process and that process is to inform the da and the judges because that process doesnt exist based on kufrnt law and thats what the state law allows us to do. Any notion that we would be putting somebody out whos involved in a shooting or robbery or anything like this, this is something that completely departs from what were even thinking or talking about, but ultimately its da and judges who would have that decision. My final question is i understand that the da and the committee, is there a representative here today . No. Did they send a communication to the mayors office, the da . You read a letter a statement from the chief, im wondering if theres a statement from the da. Mayors office to the president , no, maam we dont have a statement from the da to read. I can ask for da to come here. I know theyre opposed to this legislation. To the same that a public defender supported it. This highlights the point, that that information was never shared, didnt know chief steel was in favor of it. All im hearing is from opposition so i dont know what other offices have how you guys have dealt with this particular matter, but this is something that im taking very seriously and id loov to hear what some of your other thoughts are. Supervisor wiener. Thank you. Actually, i dont have an issue with the process or timing here. My understanding is that this has been in committee sever times. I aem assuming it came out of the Committee Report simply so the two reeds could be before the board goes into recess so im prepared to vote on this today. I do have concerns about this. I want to associate myself with supervisor farrells remarks and president chius, but i want to focus so far has been on the pretrial em with bail. The legislation also makes a change for post trial for convicted inmates and it does so by eliminated the requirement that be placed on em as a convict that you have to have been either minimum security or low risk and so it looks like the Sheriffs Department is leaving or something. I have questions also. Can i ask questions too or yes. I dont know if you just heard what i just said, i think its been appropriate so far on the pretrial em but in terms of post conviction, theres a change to the law eliminating the requirement that people who are convicted in custody has to be either minimum security and low risk and thats being eliminated. Why is that . Thats the state law. Thats just amending the state law total 3. 016 it deleted forming local law to that code section. Are you saying we have to do that . What the legislation is just conforming local law to state law. Are we able to go beyond state law . Do we have so they this is not going beyond state law. For example, the state law required before that for someone whos convicted they had to be eligible for em, they had to be minimum security and low risk. That changed in terms of what allow eded counties to place people on em who are low risk. Do we have to stick with that standard of state law or can we go beyond it and say we still want people participating in em who are convicted to be minimum security and low risk only . I would have to reread it. My understanding is to implement that it has to be approved by the board. The state law says you dont need that requirement, this legislation is just conforming to that. If you dont change the current legislation that wont change. So we can we dont have to make this amendment in terms of people who have been convicted. We could limit em for people in San Francisco for people who have been convicted in low risk . I would have to discuss that with the City Attorney. Im just trying to pull up the section of the government code right now, but these two sections of the code authorize the board to create a program so the board could adopt a program that authorizes the sheriff to use em in a more limited set of circumstances. So just to be clear, currently is currently under San Francisco law for people who have been convicted of crimes and in county jail to be eligible for em they have to be minimum security and low risk offenders. Is it the case we can just stick with that limitation despite the fact that state law would allow us to eliminate that limitation . Yes, the state law authorizes the boards to adopt a program and prescribe rules for that program. So we can be more limited than state law. Its not just that state law changed and we have to conform, the sheriff eefs department is asking the supervisors to make a policy choice that people who have been convicted in county jail, who are not minimum security that theyre electronic monitoring. Youre asking for that policy judgment . I have to make a slight adjustment to that reasoning. First of all, the code section itself is what has been transposed into the legislation. Our own em eligible however, does require that people do not have the serious or violent felonies that you might be addressing. But for purposes of an actual policy standpoint as the City Attorney said, if you wanted to limit to just the previous incarnation so to speak of low level, looks like you can do that okay. So you have on the one hand, minimum security and low risk offenders and then you mentioned serious violent felonies, the assaults and robberies and rapes and murders, but theres a whole class of crimes in between, were talking about auto break ins, home burglaries, vandz lichl, are those the kind of crimes that would be in that in between category under your proposal for people who have been convicted would now be eligible for em . It depends on the specific charge. I know that distinction might be lost in just discussing felonies. I know they might be serious. All crimes are serious to many people, but theres actual penal code section definitions of what a serious felony is, what a violent felony is. Some of the ones you mentioned are serious and violent robberies, rapes, that type of offense. What about breaking into a car. Thats seconddegree, considered a regular felony, not serious or seconddegree. What about breaking into ten cars. Volume doesnt matter. I know weve seen in my district, that would now that person would be eligible for em. The reason i raise this with respect to the convictions i think the bail issue has been thoroughly covered. I have a frustration and many of my constituents have a frustration, that in San Francisco to get to the point where youre actually convicted and incarcerated, its not always the easiest thing, nor should it be easy, but you have some of these people for some of these crimes to be prosecuted, convicted, sentenced to jail in terms of instead of some sort of diversion. Thats sort of like running the gauntlet and we see, you know, a lot of times people being churned back outs on to the street and committing these crimes again and so i think a lot of people might be frustrated to hear that even if you get to the point where a person actually gets arrested, prosecuted, convicted, sentenced and is actually in custody, and then even then they might just get sent out on em, i think a lot of people would find that not to be acceptable. Supervisor, i just wanted to share in the discussion a little bit. Just want to reiterate that that language of minimum security prisonerings and low risk offenders is consistent with the change in state law so thats just simply a replication state laws allows us, doesnt require us. I have no problem what soever in making sure that the language is returned if thats something that San Francisco wants to do unique to itself. But in the larger discussion that you just shared about concerns to district, i was a supervisor who presided over a disfrikt that was well enveloped with all ranges of crime, that was a signature issue for me. I carried that forward as sheriff. Any suggestion or any inference that were trying to be lenient is completely false. And yet what were trying to do is i think, leverage what state law has empowered all state sheriffs associations to make sure we maintain or reach by allowing for a pretrial population, which is the import of this legislation an anlt that never existed before in the city and county of San Francisco. Any lifting from that of scenarios of certain people that could violate, we could be here all day and all night sort of those what if scenarios and i get that. Those are very important scenarios but thags why we have succeeded so well in our em and Home Detention Program and it sounds like there is more assurances that you would like to have as i would completely understand as o why we would make sure either for the convicted sentence side of em, which by the way its the courts who ask us to put somebody in em. We dont do that for the sentence side when convicted side. Its the courts that say will you put somebody on em. Its the courts who generate that request. Its only been sometimes where its the other way around where the courts have asked us to do something and for Public Safety concerns we have not, but all courts are suggesting put people on em. Okay. I appreciate that. So colleagues, i given that, it seems the purpose of change in state law, we dont have a jail overcrowding problem in San Francisco and in fact, there is significant frustration that there are some people who should be doing time in jail two who dont because its not a serious crime. We have property crimes happening, the auto break ins, burglaries, vandalism that have significant impacts on our communities and these are real impacts and you have people who cycle through the system. Theres little to no accountability and so when you have someone who makes it through the system, thats a pretty serious thing in San Francisco. I dont agree with making electronic monitoring more per mesquite permissive for people who [inaudible] as well and so im not prepared to support this. Supervisor campos. Thank you. I have a clarifying point and a question and i want to make a couple points. For sheriff, my understanding is that one of the objective in trying to consider the option of making em a possibility is to address the fact that there are some people who sit in county jail not because they are a Public Safety, but because they dont have the money to pay bail. I mean, isnt that sort of part of the sort of one of the reason . Is that correct or i would say its a sizable population that cant afford bail. Were not the highest and were not the lowest, but our pretrial population in San Francisco in county jail is about 60, 65 . Some of those people are there because they condition afford bail so people who can afford bail, i understand wouldnt be given the same level of response versus those who cant. Yeah, and i want to make a point very clear, you know, i chaired the Public Safety committee when this item fist came up months ago, there was a concern that was raised by the district attorneys and we postponed the item so we could give the sheriff and da the opportunity to have a conversation and so we could get more information from the das office. At the time the Police Department was