According to Sheriff\u2019s Department data, from June 1 to Nov. 10, 2023 (the most recent available), 42% of people booked in San Francisco County Jail on drug-related charges were Latinx compared with 30% who were Black and 28% who were white. And as Carlos witnessed years ago, some people desperately need to communicate their need for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are people there who have mental problems, mental problems that they cannot deal with, and how are they going to tell that to someone who knows only English and doesn\u2019t understand?\u201d Carlos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year\u2019s police crackdown also targeted people for simple drug use<\/a> as a means of encouraging them into substance use disorder treatment, according to city and law enforcement officials. Yet since then the jail\u2019s treatment program, Road to Recovery, has been available only in English, despite an expressed interest in treatment from the Latinx population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to city Department of Public Health data, during the 12 months that ended in September 2023, Jail Health Services assessed 380 incarcerated Latinx patients as having an opioid use disorder. Of them, 209 sought treatments through medications such as buprenorphine or methadone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unclear how many of them lost out on treatment programming because they were monolingual Spanish speakers, since the data don\u2019t track language preference. But in one instance last October, service provider Joanna Hernandez of the Latino Task Force, a San Francisco-based association of more than three dozen community-based organizations, said she witnessed a \u201cpod\u201d \u2014 a group of men assigned to a small congregation of cells \u2014 attending Road to Recovery at County Jail No. 3 in San Bruno. Hernandez said of the 46 men attending, 20 were Spanish speakers and could barely understand the curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSometimes they just sit and kind of understand some of the words but if not, they\u2019ll just go to their cells,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cAnd then I checked in with the staff, and he told me, \u2018I don\u2019t have Spanish-speaking staff and it sucks because they keep putting people who don\u2019t speak the language in this program pod.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s something that happens a lot inside the jails. So, people are coming back to the same mess, back to the same behavior \u2014 if not coming back even worse, because they were confined and ripped from their family, their children, their religion, like everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ali Riker, director of programs for the Sheriff\u2019s Department, said she was aware that Spanish speakers attended the English-language Road to Recovery program. She said she speculated that this happened because they had enough English proficiency to request access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t, like, barring people from participating who requested it,\u201d Riker said. \u201cI know it\u2019s not ideal. We\u2019re doing our best. Is it enough? You know, we need more. We definitely need more resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hernandez joined the other Latinx social service providers at the Sheriff\u2019s Department Oversight Board on Feb. 2. She said she\u2019s experienced the chaos caused by short staffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you get there to facilitate your class, you\u2019re told, \u2018Sorry, we\u2019re not at our minimum, program is cancelled,\u2019\u201d Hernandez said, adding that neglecting jail vocational and rehabilitation opportunities is counterproductive to the city\u2019s stated goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know that people want public safety,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I know that people want drug sales to stop, their cars being robbed or bipped. But what are we doing locking people up and they\u2019re not receiving any rehabilitation?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long-term negative effects are especially dismal for incarcerated youth. Latinx people aged 18 to 24 represented 10 times more drug-related bookings in San Francisco jail from June 1 to Nov. 10 than either their Black or white counterparts. And advocates say younger people especially need reentry programs since criminal records inhibit them from gaining work skills, career advancements and economic opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The community group representatives told the oversight commissioners that they and other program providers are best positioned to help turn these lives around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are culturally competent,\u201d said Bianca Sanchez, a case manager at Bay Area Community Resources. \u201cWe implement a healing-centered approach and have a trauma-informed lens, making us more equipped to provide services and support inside the jails. As trained professionals, we can provide the effective intervention, treatment and rehabilitation services to break the cycles of incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie Soo, president of the oversight board, said the request was in keeping with decades-old city legislation enshrining the right to equal access to city services<\/a> for all San Franciscans, including those with limited proficiency in English \u2014 legislation that she helped draft. But, she said, a \u201cvery conservative\u201d Sheriff\u2019s Department budget will require \u201csetting up priorities.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n New Programs Arriving but Doubts Remain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Less than a week after the oversight board meeting, a new Spanish-language version of a substance abuse recovery class called Living in Balance was launched as well as a Spanish-language art therapy class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riker said she\u2019s optimistic that class scheduling will remain stable since the Sheriff\u2019s Department has delivered programs uninterrupted from 9 to 11 a.m. in the jail annex \u2014 where a large number of Spanish-speaking inmates have recently been transferred \u2014 for a few months now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others are not as optimistic as Riker. Hernandez said the two hours a day compete with outdoor time, phone calls and lawyer visits, among other activities \u2014 and it\u2019s a far cry from the six to seven hours a day of addiction treatment programming<\/a> that inmates used to get. And a longtime jail worker speaking on condition of anonymity said they believe the new curriculum is just for show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey do stuff, you know, for the cameras, and then when it\u2019s over with, when nobody\u2019s looking, it goes back to how it was,\u201d the worker said, adding, \u201cI give it two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sylvie Pagan of NoVA, the No Violence Alliance Program, whose participants return to the community after serving time for a violent offense or multiple arrests, told the oversight board on Feb. 2 that her organization was also launching a Latino program in jail the next week. But, she said, \u201cthis is just a seed in a large bucket of many, many needs that we need for community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riker said she\u2019s eager to partner with more community organizations, and with the meager resources at her disposal, she\u2019s imploring outside groups for even more help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riker encouraged any community-based organizations focused on providing volunteer services to the newcomer Spanish-speaking population to help by emailing William Cooper, rehabilitation services manager with the Sheriff\u2019s Department, at william.cooper@sfgov.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayor\u2019s Budget Prioritizes Police<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year\u2019s police crackdown on drugs caused the jail population to balloon from 800 people in June to more than 1,100 today. The situation exacerbated an already critical level of staff shortages at the sheriff\u2019s office, which, according to the latest reports, needs to hire 207 people to fully staff its contingent of 920 positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, civil rights attorney Yolanda Huang sued San Francisco<\/a> on behalf of incarcerated people who claimed they suffered serious health problems from lack of sunlight after years of lockdowns. That issue is still being litigated, Huang said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe solution is, if the mayor wants to put people in jail \u2014 and I\u2019m not talking about whether or not it should or should not happen \u2014 then she has to pay for it,\u201d Huang said. \u201cShe has to fully staff the jail. And if she\u2019s not going to fully staff the jail, then they need to not put these people in jail. It\u2019s real simple. If you\u2019re going to house them and control them, then you have to do it right. And they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it\u2019s not just jails that are suffering. Gaps in duties normally assigned to sheriff\u2019s deputies led the San Francisco Public Defender\u2019s office to sue San Francisco County Superior Court over trial backlogs<\/a>, claiming it infringed their clients\u2019 right to a speedy trial. The court said trial delays were due to the sheriff\u2019s office being overextended at the jails and the Hall of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, Mayor London Breed slashed the sheriff\u2019s budget by $8 million for 2023-24 giving the department an annual total of $292 million. She did, however, increase the San Francisco Police Department\u2019s budget by $61 million for 2023-24 and another $11 million the following fiscal year for a total of $786 million. That funding will go toward hiring 500 more officers, overtime and higher salaries negotiated under a new union contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, last June, city supervisors endorsed a resolution by Supervisor Matt Dorsey requesting that the city Human Resources Department draft a policy of hiring bonuses for police department recruits that would compete with other law enforcement agencies in Northern California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Jan. 16, Breed and Police Chief Bill Scott issued a joint press release touting their successes<\/a>. The release announced that three police academy classes totaling 60 recruits were scheduled to graduate in February and May. The achievement was thanks to a higher starting pay and streamlined testing and hiring processes, the release stated. There was no mention of hiring bonuses.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eltecolote.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/WEB_LatinxArrests-771x578-1.jpg?resize=600%2C450&quality=89&ssl=1\")
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