It has been a busy and productive spring! Only weeks ago we announced plans to outfit deputy sheriffs at County Jail #4 with on-body cameras, making ours the first jail system in the state to utilize the devices. Our pilot program will launch in the next few months and expands on our ongoing commitment to increase transparency and accountability within the Sheriff's Department. Stay tuned for more details on this important new initiative.

You know the expression about "idle hands?" The same can be said about "idle minds."  Education, creativity, music and family all contribute to a meaningful life for all of us, and carry a special poignancy for those in jail. It is well established that inmates who have the opportunity to learn both academics and skills while incarcerated have more opportunities when they leave. Similarly, inmates who can maintain family and community ties, have a much better chance of not returning. Jail is punishment, removal from society, but it can also be a time of self-improvement and self-reflection.
 
We are all extremely proud of the fine work that the Five Keys Charter High School has been doing for the last 12 years. The smiling faces of the graduates and their families are certainly the reward for staff's planning, teaching and hours of mentoring. But national recognition as an innovative program is the bonus prize for all who have contributed to the success of the Five Keys. This month, Steve Good, the Five Keys Charter School Executive Director and I joined the other finalists for the Kennedy School's Innovation in American Government Award at Harvard for presentations to the selection panel. Regardless of the how the competition turns out, it was exhilarating to share the time with so many other people tackling challenging problems in government.

Pounding the books is not the only way to learn math, three-dimensional relationships and patience. Our new sewing classes at County Jail #2 have been a big hit.  They began as an extension of a geometry course, but sewing uses the hands as much as the mind in measuring, cutting fabric into the needed forms and shaping useful items. Learning to operate a sewing machine is another skill, a possible tool for employment, but also a tool for creativity and self-sufficiency.

The healing power of music flowed as Naima Shalhoub performed in honor of Mother's Day, recording her debut album for the women in Jail #2. Ms. Shalhoub began bringing music to women in the jail last year, moving the women to rise, to sing original songs of freedom, healing and surviving. Underscoring her commitment to helping incarcerated women, Ms. Shalhoub will put half of the profits of her new album into programs supporting incarcerated women and reentry.
 
Last month, we welcomed Rabbi Jill Cozen-Harel into our Chaplaincy program, which serves our sworn and non-sworn staff with a "Ministry of Presence." The stresses of our jobs as peace officers and custodians of prisoners, serving public safety and reacting to public discord can take a toll. Our chaplaincy program is a valuable staff resource.  
 
In closing, let's honor and remember our veterans who travel to distant and difficult lands and give everything to protect our country. 

Honors - from Harvard! 

Sheriff Mirkarimi and Five Keys Executive Director Steve Good prepare to speak at Harvard Kennedy School in May.

The San Francisco Sheriff's Department (SFSD) has been named a finalist for the Harvard Kennedy School's prestigious Innovations in American Government Award. Selected for vanguarding innovative approaches that address some of government's most urgent challenges, SFSD's Five Keys Charter High School and four other finalists will compete for the award's coveted $100,000 grant.

Sheriff Mirkarimi and Five Keys Executive Director Steve Good travelled to Cambridge in May to give a live-streamed presentation before the award's selection committee as to why Five Keys should win. Watch their presentation here.

"This is a huge honor made possible by our visionary and hardworking staff who are pushing the envelope to meaningfully lower recidivism," said Sheriff Mirkarimi. "Historically, within the U.S. prison and jail systems, opportunities prove few in providing ex-offenders hope through a working skill. However, those times are changing, as evidenced by the durable reach of the SFSD's Five Keys Charter High School whose common sense approach to improving public safety is by not letting incarcerated minds decay."

Founded in 2003, Five Keys is the first public charter high school in the U.S. to operate in an adult detention facility. Infusing the five ideals of community, family, recovery, education and employment into its curriculum, Five Keys' growing impact reaches beyond the walls of its jail-embedded classrooms to 21 community centers throughout San Francisco and 13 in Los Angeles -- serving over 9,000 students annually.

Providing inmates with an education helps create safer communities, reduces tax dollars spent on incarceration, and affords the incarcerated with the skills they'll need to rejoin communities and their families upon release. Recidivism rates for inmates who go through the Five Keys program is 28% based on re-arrest for a new felony charge. (The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's 2013 Outcome Evaluation Report shows that the total three-year recidivism rate for all felons released during fiscal year 2008-2009 is 61%, with nearly 50 percent of those inmates going back into jail or prison within the first six months after release.)

In May, Five Keys won the 2015 Pioneer Institute Better Government Competition and last year Five Keys was awarded the Hart Vision Award for Charter School of the Year (Northern California). SFSD's Resolve to Stop the Violence Program won the Innovations in American Government Award in 2004.

The city treasurer's Kindergarten to College project is a second San Francisco-based program nominated for this year's Innovations in American Government Award. The program automatically enrolls every public school kindergartener in their own savings account.

The 2015 Innovations in American Government Award winner will be announced this summer.

Read news coverage of Five Key's Charter High School as the subject of a new documentary: With Doc, Mission Residents Go Inside High School In Jail (Mission Local).

Body Cameras Coming Soon to County Jails

SFSD will be the first county jail system in the state to utilize on-body cameras.

On April 30, Sheriff Mirkarimi and our SFSD staff displayed to members of the press one of the body cameras being considered for the department's new and uniquely groundbreaking body camera pilot program. "There is no other jail system in California with body cameras," said the Sheriff. "I believe this will be the wave of the future."

Implementing on-body cameras in adult detention    facilities is a first-of-its-kind decision in California and expands on the department's ongoing work to increase transparency and accountability. Thirty body cameras will be worn by deputy sheriffs on all shifts at County Jail #4. The Sheriff pieced together funds for the pilot from the department's Materials and Supplies Budget after requesting and not receiving funds from the city budget for the devices in 2013 and 2014. The department is planning to implement the program in several months.

Because the body camera pilot is the first of its kind in the state, the SFSD has assumed an important leadership role in creating protocols and polices from scratch that will govern the use of the devicies, including rules governing application and use, privacy rights, ramifications for failure to adhere, data storage, personnel training, and public records requests.

"People under our lock and key deserve respect and humane treatment or else we risk fueling the criminality we strive to abate," stated the Sheriff. "I don't believe body cameras alone satisfy the greater call unless they are accompanied with modernized training, policy reforms that dissuade misconduct, and the political will to correct abuse of power."

The devices will ensure that interactions between deputy sheriffs and inmates are recorded, better ensuring the safety of inmates and protecting deputies against unfounded allegations.

Watch news coverage of our new body camera pilot program: 

• SF sheriff wants body cameras (Bay Area Reporter) 
• Mayor eclipses sheriff's plan for body cameras (SF Gate)

LIVE! From CJ#2

Naima Shalhoub recorded and performed her debut album at CJ#2.

In an event reminiscent of Johnny Cash's 1968 live album performance at Folsom State Prison, in May, accomplished Bay Area singer and performer Naima Shalhoub recorded and performed her debut album Borderlands live in concert for the incarcerated women at County Jail #2.

In this special performance, timed to honor Mother's Day, Ms. Shalhoub extended a gift of music to the inmates at County Jail #2 that she began one year ago; the singer has been facilitating music sessions with a group of incarcerated women at the jail since May of 2014. Her rapport with her audience and her finely honed singing talent paid off - the women were greatly moved by her performance, often rising to their feet to move, sing and even shout along with the music.

"Naima sings from her heart for the poor, the incarcerated and the oppressed," said Sheriff Mirkarimi, adding "we all could use another Johnny Cash, and Naima Shalhoub is stepping up."

A first-generation Lebanese American, with a master's degree in Postcolonial and Cultural Anthropology, Ms. Shalhoub's Bay Area performance venues have included Yoshi's, The Great American Music Hall and the New Parish. Rhodessa Jones, founder of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, contributed the performance's opening ritual and Naima was joined on stage by Isaac Ho (keys), Tarik Kazaleh (guitar, oud, tabla), Aaron Kierbel (drum kit, percussion), and Marcus Shelby (bass).

Songs on the album are mainly originals with the themes of freedom, healing and resiliency, with a few re-arranged covers including a civil rights folk song, an Arabic folk song, and a Billie Holiday cover. Fifty percent of the profits from Borderlands will be given to social programming and re-entry programs to support incarcerated women.

Read news coverage of Naima Shalhoub's LIVE CJ#2 concert: Naima Shalhoub Records Debut Album Before an Audience of Incarcerated Mothers at County Jail (SF Weekly).

Love Your Mother

 

One Family staff gets into the spirit at this year's Mother's Day celebration at CJ#2.

7th Annual Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department SERT Challenge

Team SFSD took several prizes at this year's CoCo Sheriff's Dep't SERT Challenge!

At the 7th Annual Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department SERT ("Sheriff's Emergency Response Team") Challenge on May 22, the SFSD competed against nine other sheriff's departments in the areas of marksmanship, endurance and agility, and did our department and our county proud! Congratulations to Lt. Krol (first place, shotgun contest), Deputy Tabayoyon (first place, pistol contest) and Deputy K. Ng (second place in both the shotgun and pistol contests). The SFSD team also won second place in the team range run and third place in the obstacle course and "rat run." SFSD team members included Lt. Krol, Sr. Deputy Castellanos, Deputy M. Gonzales, Deputy Hughes, Deputy Camarra, Deputy Simms, Deputy K. Ng, Deputy Fernando, Deputy Tabayoyon, and Deputy Artificio. 

All in a Day's Work

Sr. Deputy V. Chew.

And the Award Goes to...

The Sheriff's Department and Five Keys Charter High School have been named winner of the Pioneer Institute's Better Government Competition! The competition seeks out and rewards the most innovative public policy proposals.

Please see "Honors -- from Harvard," printed above, to read about Five Keys being named a finalist for Harvard Kennedy School's prestigious 2015 Innovations in American Government Award. 

SFSD Activities and Programs 

Rep's from CDCR, CA Dep't of Public Health, San Quentin, and other agencies toured SFSD's successful condom distribution program.

On May 1, Sheriff Mirkarimi hosted a group of esteemed guests, including rep-resentatives from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the California Medical Facility, the California Department of Public Health, San Quentin State Prison, and Mule Creek State Prison, who wanted to learn more about the successful deployment of SFSD's condom distribution program. Assembly Bill 999 (Bonta), as amended on March 21, 2013, requires that the CDCR develop a five year plan to incrementally extend the availability of condoms in all California prisons.

They began their visit with a meeting with the Sheriff at City Hall then embarked on a guided tour of County Jail #5 and -- the condom dispensary machines -- with Director of HIV Services, Kate Monico Klein and Chief Deputy of Custody Operations, Matthew Freeman.