San Francisco Turned Down $80M to Replace Its Failing Jails
Summary
San Francisco's own Civil Grand Jury reports that the City walked away from up to $80 million in California state grant funds to replace its aging jails -- money the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to seek in July 2015 and then unanimously rejected five months later. A decade on, the Jury calls the jails a system at a breaking point: by late 2025 the average daily population had reached 1,271 with 47% of inmates carrying open mental-health cases, misdemeanor narcotics arrests had surged from 184 to 1,246 a year, and the population was being held in decaying, understaffed facilities the City itself chose not to fund replacing.
The money it turned down
The California Board of State and Community Corrections awarded the $80 million⧉ in November 2015 to finance a 384-bed replacement facility with dedicated mental-health and medical units. On December 15, 2015, the Board of Supervisors rejected it. Five years on, the Jury finds, the City had barely reduced capacity -- it closed County Jail #4's 402 beds and reopened a dormitory Annex with room for 372 -- while having walked away from the state money. A 2017 request for a further $70 million to modernize another jail was denied.
The population it now can't handle
By late 2025, the Jury reports, the average daily population had climbed to 1,271, with 47% of inmates carrying open mental-health cases⧉ and 37% on psychiatric medication. Misdemeanor narcotics arrests surged from 184 in 2022 to 1,246 in 2025, roughly a 6.8-fold jump that pours short-stay detainees into an intake system built for another era. The facility the City rejected would have carried exactly the mental-health and medical capacity the jails now lack.
View data as table
| 2022 | 184 |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,246 |
The jails' rated capacity is 1,472 beds⧉, but the Sheriff's own manual directs operating about 10% below that -- an effective limit near 1,325. December 2025's peak of 1,375 pushed past it. The reopened Annex, closed in 2010 and judged unsafe for maximum-security inmates, now holds mostly medium- and maximum-security men in open dormitories -- and there are no other facilities to bring online once it fills.
View data as table
| Average daily population, late 2025 | 1,271 |
|---|---|
| Safe operating limit (~10% below rated) | 1,325 |
| Peak population, Dec 2025 | 1,375 |
| Rated capacity | 1,472 |
Paid for in overtime and deferred maintenance
Custody staffing has run 20-30% below authorized levels for years⧉. Deputies average 28 hours of overtime a week; the Annex is staffed entirely on it. To cover the bill in 2025, the Sheriff's Office diverted $3.9 million out of its capital and equipment budgets -- $300,000 from vehicles, including replacement buses, and $3.6 million from IT -- into overtime salaries.
The takeaway
- The City chose this. It unanimously voted to seek $80 million in state money to replace its jails, then unanimously rejected the grant it won -- and a decade of capital neglect followed, a further $70 million request denied along the way.
- The rejected facility was built for exactly this population. The $80 million would have funded 384 beds with dedicated mental-health and medical units. Instead, by late 2025 the jails held 1,271 people, 47% with open mental-health cases, in facilities the Jury says weren't built for them.
- Making do is being paid for elsewhere. The population sits above the Sheriff's own safe operating limit, the reopened Annex runs entirely on overtime, and $3.9 million meant for buses and IT was diverted to cover it in 2025 alone.
All findings are from the San Francisco 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury report, "When Making Do Doesn't Work: San Francisco Jails in Crisis," published June 9, 2026, read directly in full. The Civil Grand Jury is a government oversight panel of 19 San Francisco citizen volunteers; under California Penal Code Section 933, the Mayor, Sheriff, District Attorney, and Board of Supervisors are legally required to formally respond to its findings and recommendations within 60-90 days. Figures reflect the report's own cited sources -- SFSO daily count reports, BSCC monthly data, and SF Open Data.
Sources(2) ▾
- San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, When Making Do Doesn't Work: San Francisco Jails in Crisis (2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury Report) (2026-06-09) — Report of the City and County of San Francisco 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury (a 19-citizen, one-year volunteer government oversight panel), published June 9, 2026. Read the full PDF directly (extracted with pdftotext -layout). The $80M grant timeline is in 'How We Got Here' (p.6) and Appendix B (p.44); the population, mental-health, and narcotics-arrest figures are in the 'Analysis: A System Under Compounding Pressures' section (Charts 2, 4, 5); the staffing/overtime figures are in 'Pressure #3: The Compounding Staffing Crisis' (p.31-33). Under California Penal Code Section 933, the Mayor, Sheriff, District Attorney, and Board of Supervisors are required to formally respond to the report's findings and recommendations within 60-90 days. media.api.sf.gov · original document
- City and County of San Francisco, 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury Reports (index page) (2026-06-09) — Official San Francisco government index of the 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury reports, confirming 'When Making Do Doesn't Work: San Francisco Jails in Crisis' as an official published report of the panel and hosting the issuer's own copy. Landing page only; the load-bearing figures are cited to the report PDF itself. sf.gov · original document
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San Francisco's 2025-2026 Civil Grand Jury⧉ -- a 19-citizen independent oversight panel -- finds the City walked away from up to $80 million in California state grant money to replace its aging jails. The Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to seek the grant in July 2015. Five months later, the same board unanimously voted to reject it.