San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has warned Mayor Daniel Lurie that “entire categories of crimes” will not be prosecuted if his proposed budget cuts take effect, according to a report.
Ms. Jenkins wrote to Mr. Lurie’s budget czar last month, saying at least 25 prosecutors could be laid off to comply with a $5.4 million budget cut the mayor proposed for the office, according to her letter obtained by the San Francisco Standard.
She wrote that the DA’s office “would effectively have to suspend prosecuting entire categories of crimes due to lack of resources [and] reassign and redistribute thousands of cases or risk mass dismissals.”
“The impact of this request, if implemented, will still have a crippling effect on ensuring public safety throughout San Francisco,” Ms. Jenkins said in her April 22 letter to Budget Director Sophia Kittler.
San Francisco faces an $820 million deficit, forcing Mr. Lurie, a Democrat, to put the city on a spending diet.
He ordered all agencies under his purview to cut expenses by at least 15% to accommodate for the shortfall. The mayor is required to deliver a balanced budget to the Board of Supervisors next month.
But Ms. Jenkins said her office’s more than 7,000 pending cases are the highest the district attorney has seen in the last five years.
And junior prosecutors at the DA’s office, who Ms. Jenkins said would most likely be on the chopping block if the cuts become mandatory, mostly handle the drug and quality-of-life crimes that have scarred San Francisco’s image since the pandemic took hold in 2020.
The city’s top prosecutor said she fears cuts to staff will lead to even more “unsustainable workloads” and cause people to leave the office in droves.
“Any staffing reductions are not possible if the city wishes to continue prosecuting crimes meaningfully,” Ms. Jenkins wrote. “Stated another way, good police work turns into prosecutions — a push for public safety impacts both organizations.”
Despite being a political newcomer, Mr. Lurie was able to win over San Franciscans at the ballot box last fall by promising to crack down on the fentanyl use that has ravaged the city.
San Francisco has seen nearly 3,400 overdose deaths between 2020-24, which are largely driven by the potent synthetic opioid. Preliminary data from city officials said an additional 192 people have died from overdoses between January and March this year.
Mr. Lurie in February spearheaded an emergency order to tackle the crisis by opening “stabilization” centers that allow addicts on the street to receive treatment without being arrested first.
And in March he signed an executive order to get the city’s homeless off drugs and into shelters. Vagrants on the street are largely behind San Francisco’s persistent fentanyl problem.
City Hall is expected to hold a Wednesday hearing on the DA office’s budget and staffing.
