SF supes unanimously turn down plan to build new jail

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday against building a new jail.

... Sheriff Deputy Matthew Freeman said after the vote, “Public safety was dealt a major blow today.”

Mayor Ed Lee’s spokeswoman Christine Falvey said after the vote in an email, “The purchase of the property is moving forward and the Mayor is looking forward to the work on mental health and other jail diversion strategies that will now be undertaken and led by the Sheriff’s Department and our Public Health professionals.”

After the vote Lizzie Buchen, a coordinator with Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), a statewide group opposing jail project, celebrated the outcome. “This is the first jail fight they we have won,” Buchen said of the three year effort. “In the beginning we had no supervisors on our side.”

Read more: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-supes-unanimously-turn-down-plan-to-build-new-jail/

---

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

... The building at 850 Bryant St. “needs to come down, but more than a building we need to tear down the system of mass incarceration it represents,” board President London Breed said. “I am not going to support another stand-alone jail to continue to lock up African Americans and Latinos in this city.”

... The jail vote represents a blow to Lee and Sheriff-elect Vicki Hennessy, who both championed replacing County Jail No. 4, which is located in a seismically unsafe building and has no room for counseling and other programs. They said not building a new jail exposed the city to lawsuits and would cost more in the long run, given that the state has offered $80 million to subsidize the cost.

Opponents of the project, including District Attorney George Gascón, have said the city should continue to invest in diversion programs to decrease the jail population and that the inmates at County Jail No. 4 should be moved to the city’s three other jails.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/No-new-jail-S-F-supervisors-refuse-to-6700835.php

[valerief]

1. Why would they need a jail? To put their millionaires and billionaires in? Not likely. nt

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. Sheriff Deputy Matthew Freeman said after the vote, “Public safety was dealt a major blow today.”

Only if you decide to go in guns blazing with a "take no prisoners" attitude.

[Feeling the Bern]

3. The PIC is as bad a money whore as the MIC. Welcome to the United States of Police.

[mulsh]

4. That jail at the hall of justice opened in '94. SF has been rebuilding its larger, older jails

for the past decade or so. Perhaps the supes are aware of these facts. It's obvious the folk as SF gate are not.

[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_County_Jails|

I have a feeling a developer tool as well oiled as Mayor Lee, legacy Sheriff Hennessy and their committee will figure a work around solution for keeping that $80 million dollar state grant.