Updated 6:00 p.m., Thursday, May 16
A controversial proposal to close San Francisco’s Juvenile Hall in over two years cleared its first major hurdle on Thursday, with a Board of Supervisors committee unanimously voting to advance it to the full board.
The legislation, authored by Supervisors Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen and Matt Haney, would shutter Juvenile Hall by the end of 2021 and encourage the development of alternatives to jailing young offenders. The full board will hear the proposal on June 4.
Walton said the current system prepares young people for what he calls the prison pipeline.
“We would never put a system in place that is worse than our current Juvenile Hall. And what we are proposing is an alternative to Juvenile Hall that also provides a true opportunity for young people to be rehabilitated,” he said.
Closing the facility without a clear plan for its replacement would put young offenders in the criminal justice system at risk, the city’s top juvenile justice official said in a letter to the board on Tuesday.
Chief Probation Officer Allen Nance is urging supervisors — a majority of whom back a bill to shut down the Twin Peaks facility — to rethink their proposal.
“In the absence of a clearly articulated plan to replace the existing structure, I am concerned that dismantling juvenile hall could serve to destabilize and adversely impact overall juvenile justice system operations,” Nance said in his letter.
Ronen, who immediately pushed back on Nance’s letter, said San Francisco can keep the public safe and ensure better outcomes for youth without the current facility.
“I’ve been inside Juvenile Hall and it is a jail like any jail in this country,” she said. “Kids do not get outside. They do not breathe fresh air very often. They are locked in a tiny room by themselves over 11 hours a day. Many are suffering from severe mental health disorders. It is punitive in nature.”
Ronen added that the facility does not prioritize rehabilitation: “And we should not be jailing kids — it is that simple.”
The proposal calls for the creation of a “small rehabilitative non-institutional place of detention” for young offenders who are required by state law to be in a secure facility.
The measure was prompted by a San Francisco Chronicle series showing that violent felony juvenile arrest rates in San Francisco had declined by 87 percent since 1990, while spending on youth corrections has gone up.
Eight supervisors — a veto-proof majority — have signed on to the legislation, which means it will take effect if it passes the full board.
The city is now spending an average of $279,500 per youth to run an institution that is serving less than 50 kids at a time, down from an average of 123 kids in 2008, according to city officials. They say that cost, which was $123,400 per youth in 2009, has increased 127% in the last decade.
