Criminal Justice System

Recommendations 10

• R1
  The District Attorney must keep accurate, auditable records of the work flow through their office. This should include such categories as the number, classification and Criminal Code sections of arrests, bookings, re-bookings, dispositions, etc. These records also should be indexed to the personnel who handle the cases at each stage and accountable to the time spent on each case by each employee -- as in any private law practice.
• R2
  Disposition information must be routinely relayed to the Police Department so that their records may be completed.
• R3
  An annual statistical report should be published containing this data. One year following the full implementation of this recommendation, an outside performance audit should be performed.
• R4
  The Police Department should keep detailed records of each police arrest, including such facts as the charges and disposition. Information from the District Attorney's Office should be recorded before any file is closed. This information should be kept in an auditable manner by Criminal Code section, station, officer, and case.
• R5
  An annual statistical report should be published containing data by station and department. Officer information should be made a part of each personnel file. Two years following full implementation of this recommendation an outside performance audit should be performed.
• R6
  The San Francisco Police Department should redouble its efforts to improve police incident reporting. This can be accomplished through a dual approach. First, by using technology to reduce the paperwork burden on the criminal justice system and instituting better management controls (supervision, mentoring, rewarding) over the chain of command responsible for the arresting officers. Secondly, all reports which are not re-booked should be reviewed by a designated police officer at the level of sergeant, lieutenant or inspector, and that designated officer should keep a statistical analysis identifying the reasons the reports were not re- booked. All reports not re- booked should be reviewed by the station Captain.
• R7
  Because of jail overcrowding, suspects must be released after 48 hours if a case is not filed against them. There are over 80,000 police reports per year. We recommend that the Police Department utilize Section 849b [4] of the Criminal Code to a much greater extent than they are now doing, particularly in non-violent transgressions. This would go a long way toward weeding out cases. Arresting officers can take the suspect to the station, issue an 849b citation and release the suspect with the advisory that, "You may be hearing from the District Attorney.", i.e., issuance of a warrant. This procedure would ease the pressure of jail overcrowding and considerably lower the costs of incarceration during the development of the case.
• R8
  It is our recommendation that the Police Department hire more investigators and provide them with adequate transport, lap-top computers and a sufficient number of telephones and desks with which to conduct their investigations in a professional manner. Top echelon officers of the Police Department need to show the citizenry that they are really serious about the implementation of a Centralized Investigations Unit; they need to do more than merely pay lip-service to this concern.
• R9
  At this critical juncture in the governance of the City and County of San Francisco, we feel that the confluence of a newly-elected Mayor, a newly-elected District Attorney, and a restructured Police Department with a new Chief of Police, makes it timely and imperative that an insightful effort be undertaken to streamline the Criminal Justice System. The Mayor is the key player. He must fully support a concerted effort (by a special commission or through an ad hoc study) to coordinate the activities of the District Attorney and the Police Department. The process of arrest-booking- incarceration-trial is seriously flawed. This effort to streamline the criminal justice system should be initiated no later than September 1996; should take into account prior studies; and should be approved by the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors. Enabling legislation or an executive order should be forthcoming within one year of the date of this Civil Grand Jury Report.
• R10
  The District Attorney's Office and the Police Department should begin a more respectful dialogue at the highest levels with attention given to cooperative interaction between patrol officers and assistant district attorneys. The departments should encourage police patrol "ride-alongs" for assistant district attorneys, and police sergeants should work in the Inspections Bureau before reviewing incident reports. The District Attorney should redeploy some assistant district attorneys to police stations in order to complement the work of the police at the station level. By instituting such procedures, the District Attorney could learn more about crime problems at the community level. It would also be conducive to preventing problems from proceeding downtown.