Top Three Priorities

By Ross Mirkarimi

Much of my career has been spent in some sort of public safety occupation--from law enforcement to environmental investigation. As an armed investigator in the SF District Attorney's Office, my early law enforcement work focused on prosecution--helping the DA's office achieve successful convictions. As Supervisor, I inherited a District of high crime and low expectations. I worked with community groups and city government to reclaim neighborhoods from serious crime and tackle its roots.

Much of my career has been spent in some sort of public safety occupation--from law enforcement to environmental investigation. As an armed investigator in the SF District Attorney's Office, my early law enforcement work focused on prosecution--helping the DA's office achieve successful convictions. As Supervisor, I inherited a District of high crime and low expectations. I worked with community groups and city government to reclaim neighborhoods from serious crime and tackle its roots. As a result of my insistence for community policing and rehabilitation programs in distressed areas, my District experienced the biggest drop in violent crime citywide.

I've worked at the entrance to criminal justice system and at the exit. Now, I want to work in the middle to address the revolving door of recidivism - we're simply throwing away taxpayer dollars and front-loading the police budgets by re-arresting the same offenders nearly 3 out of 4 times. This is not efficient or effective public safety.

My top three priorities if elected Sheriff are:

1) Improve Public Safety in San Francisco: Throughout the city, our neighborhood safety is entwined with the repeat offender rate, which hovers at 64 percent for those exiting from the county jails, and 77 percent for inmates returning from the state prison system. California cities like San Francisco are front-loading general fund police budgets at ballooning costs only to see the same felons arrested over and over again. This dysfunctional merry-go-round must be stopped. We need better assessments of each inmate as candidates for rehabilitation/diversion programs or incarceration.

2) Make Public Safety Realignment Work: San Francisco needs to step up its approach to effective rehabilitation and reentry. However, compared to many counties in California, San Francisco does a better job of tackling repeat offender rates. California has failed to properly deal with a prison population that is per capita larger than any country in the world. San Francisco is one of the few counties not experiencing over-crowding in our jails. We will be able to absorb between 400 and 600 additional inmates returned from the state + with approximately half going into jail and the remainder into diversion programs. Effective diversion is key to saving money so that both the Sheriff's and Adult Probation Departments will be funded sufficiently. To date, barely 30 percent of the funding will be allocated to San Francisco by the newly signed 2011-2012 state budget. As Sheriff, I will advocate relentlessly for funds, as promised by the state. Additionally, I will work with our state legislative representatives to assure that local governments are full partners with the state in implementation of public safety realignment.

3) Save the City Money - Help SFPD: Without depleting staffing resources, the Sheriff's Department can assist the SFPD in shared duties. This will use public safety funding more efficiently because the difference in salary/benefits between deputy sheriffs compared to that of a police officer is almost 23 percent. Freeing up police officers from tasks that deputy sheriffs can perform will not only save money, but will also help SFPD focus on more critical law enforcement objectives.

Pilot Memorandums Of Understanding (MOUs) between the SFSD and SFPD can be implemented on several fronts, including:

• Transferring prisoners from district police stations to jail
• Guarding prisoners while at SF General Hospital or at court
• Assisting with special events patrol and crowd