San Francisco mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie made a number of important points in a July 9 Examiner op-ed in which he called for The City to use electronic-monitoring systems to prevent arrested drug dealers from returning to neighborhoods where they were caught. While I share Lurie’s commitment to eradicate our open-air drug markets and hold drug dealers accountable, some of his frustration is misdirected at the mayor’s office. In fact, the district attorney’s office deserves much more scrutiny over its poor performance in the courtroom.
And the public deserves to know the facts. While the mayor’s office has jurisdiction over the police department, it is the responsibility of the district attorney’s office to bring charges that hold drug dealers accountable. It is District Attorney Brooke Jenkins who is failing at this task — made evident not only by the ongoing conditions in parts of the Tenderloin and SoMa , but also by simple facts on Jenkins’ performance.
So, let’s look at the facts. In the entirety Jenkins’ first full year in office in 2023, only one convicted drug dealer received a prison sentence. And it was a case former District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed.
Despite the recent media buzz around the rise in felony drug-dealing convictions rose this year, the trend is meaningless when the office is concealing vital information on the convicted charges and subsequent sentences. This tells us that dealers are back on the streets dealing again. According.