Obviously, going to jail is not supposed to be a fun or comfortable experience; it wouldn't be a deterrent against criminal behavior if it were a nice place to be. However, people still have #constitutional rights even during #incarceration, thanks to the eighth amendment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." This means that even during #incarceration, inmates have the right to be treated with basic human decency.
In San Francisco, being sent to County Jail 4 on 850 Bryant Street was definitely in the "cruel and unusual punishment" category. The building was seismically unstable, raw sewage routinely flooded the cells, and conditions were so bad that prisoners filed a class action suit and got a settlement of $2.1 million. The city dropped the ball, and they were not keeping the prisoners in a safe environment by any stretch of the imagination. So I don't think anyone was very surprised when San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted to close the hazardous facility. Thankfully, County Jail 4 permanently shut its doors in September 2020.
It is horrifying to think of anyone having to live in these conditions. Was closing this jail the right thing to do? Yes, without any doubt. Mayor London Breed called the facility "mass incarceration at its absolute worst." She further elaborated, “It is inhumane. It is nasty. It is dirty. It is filthy and I wouldn’t want to see my worst enemy in that place. It’s time to close it.”
I'm not saying that jails' accommodations should be luxurious or elegant. But if San Francisco can't even keep its inmates in safe buildings, it is clear that we have a very big problem on our hands. We can't just throw people away when they commit crimes, and we don't have a right to keep them locked up as long as possible. We need to focus more on rehabilitation.
Why did it take so long for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to reach this decision? Shouldn't it have been made several years ago? They had known since the 1990's that the building was not structurally sound. It was almost 60 years old, and during its tenure as a jail, the building lasted through four earthquakes in the SF Bay Area with magnitudes greater than 6.0. The jail was also well known for its plumbing problems. They would have cost $200,000 to fix when they were discovered but the city didn't want to invest in it.
It's actually kind of surprising that the structure hadn't already collapsed on its own, given how much the building had been through over the years.
Pressure from citizens was part of the impetus for the decision to close the facility. In the weeks preceding the closure, protestors congregated in front of the City Hall in an attempt to hasten the jail's closure, because they were tired of the administration turning a blind eye. The activist group No New SF Jail Coalition stated that their goal was "a jail-free San Francisco," and they wanted County Jail 4 to be closed "without increased policing, new jails, out-of-county transfers or electronic surveillance monitoring."
San Francisco is definitely not going too far by closing some of its jails. Our city is finally doing the right thing by refusing to lock up prisoners in unsafe facilities.
