Good morning, everyone.

This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for Thursday, May 14th, 2026.

I'm Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Chair of this committee.

I'm joined today by my fellow committee members, Vice Chair Danny Sauter and Supervisor Alan Wong.

We are grateful for our clerk today, Mr.

John Carroll, whom we thank for staffing us and keeping us on track as well.

We are appreciative to the entire team at SFGov TV for facilitating and broadcasting today's meeting, and that is especially true for our producer today, Jaime Eschaveri.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you've brought with you into the chamber today.

If you have any documents to be included as part of any of today's files, you can submit them directly to me.

Public comment will be taken on each item on today's agenda when your item of interest comes up and public comment is called.

Please line up to speak along your right-hand side.

Alternatively, you may send your written public comment to our office in one of the following ways.

First, you may email the usual clerk for this committee, which is Monique Creighton, and her email addresses M-O-N-I-Q-U-E.C-R-A-Y-T-O-N at SFGOV.org.

Or you may send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

The address is one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place, room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

If you submit public comment in writing, a clerk will forward your comments to the members of this committee and also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are commenting.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of June 2nd, 2026, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Would you please call item number one?

Agenda item number one is a hearing on the state of San Francisco's drug court program, including an examination of diversion criteria and practices, program outcomes and termination rates, treatment capacity and associated wait times, and the program's implications for public safety and recovery.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

As some of you may know, I called for this hearing following reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle last January that raised serious questions about how drug court is functioning today.

That story was entitled, San Francisco Drug Court was once meant for minor crimes.

Now people accused of violent offenses are getting in by David Hernandez.

It detailed the impact of diversion, how dramatically it has evolved in recent years, and whether the system is currently structured is meeting its dual obligations to support recovery and protect public safety.

I want to begin by acknowledging my own perspective in this, which is personally informed as someone who is in recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism and who God willing will be for the rest of my life.

I believe strongly in the life-saving and life-changing potential of interventions that involve drug treatment and abstinence-based recovery.

I have seen firsthand how people can find success against evenly even the most daunting odds when they are offered meaningful opportunities to stabilize and to access treatment, including medication-assisted treatment or MAT, to take responsibility for their lives and to change for the better.

Drug Court should be a ticket that helps people rebuild their lives.

Drug court should not be a get out-of-jail free card.

Done right, in fact, drug court may be one of the most important and effective tools available to us in a drug crisis that synthetic drugs have made deadlier than ever before.

If we are going to ask the public to continue placing confidence in this system, however, we also have an obligation to honestly evaluate whether it is operating effectively and whether it is appropriately scoped, and whether it is producing the outcomes we intend.

According to data cited by the Chronicle, drug court referrals and admissions have increased dramatically in recent years, with admissions increasing from roughly 180 cases in 2023 to more than 600 in 2025.

At the same time, the makeup of the program appears to have shifted significantly.

Evidence suggests that mental health diversion referrals under California Penal Code Section 1001.36 now make up the overwhelming majority of drug court admissions, reportedly more than 90% in 2025.

And unlike the original drug court framework, which was designed primarily for low-level addiction-driven offenses and generally excluded violent crimes, the current system has increasingly included defendants charged with offenses such as attempted murder, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and other serious violent conduct.

Now, to be clear, the existence of violent charges alone does not and should not automatically mean someone is beyond treatment or rehabilitation.

In fact, some of the academic research we reviewed in preparation for this hearing suggests that certain drug court models can reduce recidivism among both violent and nonviolent offenders when properly structured.

But the same body of research also suggests that outcomes may worsen for certain high-risk populations, including individuals with extensive prior convictions.

That tells us or should that we need a much more nuanced conversation about eligibility, screening, supervision, treatment capacity, and outcomes measurement, because another issue highlighted in the reporting is that our system appears to be under significant strain.

We are hearing reports of defendants waiting months in jail for treatment placements because capacity is insufficient to meet the demand.

We're also seeing troubling completion numbers.

In 2024, there are reportedly 134 program graduations compared to 259 terminations back into criminal court.

And perhaps most concerning, multiple agencies have acknowledged limitations in our ability to rigorously track long-term recidivism and outcomes.

If we can't reliably measure outcomes, then it becomes very difficult to evaluate whether the program is succeeding, where it is failing, and what reforms may be necessary.

This hearing is about oversight, it's about transparency.

It is about ensuring that San Francisco has a drug court system that actually works for its participants, for their families and loved ones, for crime victims, for victimized neighborhoods, and for public safety in our city.

And now I'd like to introduce our speakers today.

We are joined by San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, and from the public defender's office, Aaron Morgan, who is the deputy public defender, and Anita Naba, the felony manager.

And lastly, we have Director Dan Sai and Jose Luis Guzman from the department, both from the Department of Public Health, and Mr.