A growing number of people are detained in San Francisco’s overcrowded, under-staffed and “neglected” county jails, according to a yearlong investigation by San Francisco’s civil grand jury.
“The system is left at a breaking point with no end in sight,” wrote the team of 19 jurors in a 50-page report released earlier this month.
The report’s finding of overcrowding “highlights a challenge we have been raising for years,” wrote Tara Moriarty, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department. “Our jail facilities are aging, our technology is outdated, and the population in our care has increasingly complex medical and mental health needs.”
More people in custody, fewer beds
The number of people booked into San Francisco county jail and the number of people waiting to be processed each day has risen every year since 2021, according to sheriff and state data.
Rapidly increasing arrests for misdemeanor drug crimes and “harsher law enforcement practices” have dramatically driven up the jail population, the jurors found.
When occupancy exceeds 80 percent capacity — as it did in 2025 and is on track to do again in 2026 — the sheriff is supposed to convene a “Crowding Committee” with other actors in the justice system, like the District Attorney, the report said.
This has not happened, the jurors wrote, and safety concerns have arisen.
After overcrowding became an issue in 2023, San Francisco re-opened the Annex, a 372- bed minimum-security facility attached to County Jail No. 3 in San Bruno. In February 2026, over 80 percent of the men housed there should have been in a medium or maximum-security facility, the report said.
Jurors wrote that they “heard concerns that the current system may be under-rating dangerous individuals in order to fit available beds.”
The crowding also affects where people in custody are held before court appearances.
At County Jail No. 1 on Seventh Street, people awaiting hearings are held beside people being processed for intake or release. Excess people are held in the gym, the report said. As a result, the gym often cannot be used for state-mandated exercise.
In 2015, the Board of Supervisors rejected a state grant that would have funded a 384-bed “Rehabilitation Detention Facility” to replace the jail inside the crumbling Hall of Justice. Five years later, the board voted to close that jail, which could hold up to 402 people. There has not been funding for designated court holding cells since.
The city’s plan for where to put the growing number of people it incarcerates remains unclear. Once the system reaches capacity, the report said, people will probably have to be sent to jails in nearby Marin, Alameda or San Mateo counties.
Defacto ‘detox facility’
The sheriff, nonetheless, has legal obligations to everyone in custody.
“Untenable” circumstances, the jury’s report said, have made it more difficult to meet these obligations, among them exercise, medical care, and visitations. Earlier this month, nine women held in County Jail No. 2 sued the sheriff’s department over “unhealthy” conditions, like a lack of exercise facilities and hot water.
San Francisco not only has more people in custody than in recent years, but more who have complicated health needs, the report read.
Mental health cases, prescriptions for psychiatric medications and calls for medical attention inside San Francisco’s jails have increased over the last six years, according to state data.
The jail’s intake facility is buckling under the “strain of constant use as a detox facility,” the jurors wrote. It now operates the largest medical withdrawal management unit in San Francisco, according to Department of Public Health officials.
Dozens of people booked into jail have recounted vomit on cell floors from people experiencing addiction withdrawal. Many said they had mental health challenges that went unaddressed during the short time they remained in custody.
Confusion over record-keeping
The jurors described “considerable confusion” and “inconsistency” about how the jails’ regularly backlogged booking process works.
People must be processed into jail within 48 hours of arrest. Staff told jurors they were worried about meeting these deadlines because of the department’s “cumbersome” interface and “inexperienced” personnel. There is a hiring freeze on non-sworn staff to assist with booking.
Jail staff have been left with a “technology infrastructure from a bygone era” to process the constant flow of people, the report said. The jail’s processing hardware, purchased in 2004 and installed in 2008, is “so fragile that administrators are reluctant to reboot it,” and “prone to catastrophic failure,” which would force the entire department to default to paper record-keeping.
Holes in the foundation
This is all happening inside “neglected, overburdened facilities,” the civil grand jury wrote. The report looked at the facilities in detail, and listed jurors’ observations of faulty appliances, leaks, and requests for renovations that were never funded.
At one point in County Jail No. 3, one of the four washing machines was broken. So was the dishwasher. Only two of the five dryers worked.
At County Jail No. 2, also on Seventh Street, cold showers were a “regular occurrence” before water heaters were replaced earlier this year. People in custody there punched holes through walls made of flimsy gypsum board, photos show. Dilapidated buses, used for over 37,000 “custody transports” a year, break down two to four times a month, jurors found.
Overtime overload
For years, the jails have been understaffed. When facilities are below minimum staffing levels, people in custody receive less time outside their cell, medical attention, and visitation.
Jurors documented how the sheriff’s department has spent its budget on deputy overtime rather than facility repairs, at times exceeding its overtime budget by millions.
Deputies average 28 hours of overtime each week, with some working over 100 hours total, according to the report. Jurors said they even witnessed San Bruno jail staff sleeping in recreational vehicles to “bridge overtime shifts.”
‘Outside the public’s view’
Civil grand juries are peculiar oversight bodies, convened annually in every California county and made up of volunteers. While jurors can scrutinize any aspect of government, and have access to all county employees and records, their recommendations cannot address budgets or policies, and are not binding or enforceable.
Without the formal power to make changes, though, civil grand juries still conduct in-depth investigations, hoping to shed light on problems inside local government operations.
In San Francisco, civil grand jurors are required to tour the jails, said Margaret Keane, chair of the team that produced this year’s report.
The “distressing situation” jurors found there inspired them to dig deeper, she said, and to recommend that city officials do the same. The jurors also recommended the sheriff publish more robust data on recidivism rates and service reductions.
“Most people go through their whole life and never go into a jail,” said Keane. ”It opened all of our eyes in different ways.”
