In January 2021, Gerald Kowalczyk stole a $7 cheeseburger from a Burlingame Five Guys, setting off a chain of events that seems to have led to San Francisco’s lowest jail count in years.
On Saturday, Sept. 5, there were 978 people in the city’s jails, the lowest count since August 2023 and by far the lowest since Mayor Daniel Lurie took office.
In 2020 to 2023 — largely due to COVID-19 driving state-mandated jail releases — the city recorded historically low jail populations, reaching just around 720 people in 2020. The present number of people in San Francisco’s jails exceeds those totals, but excluding that period, the jail population is at its lowest mark since at least 1995.
It’s a rapid change. Just five months ago city jails were filled. A civil grand jury found in June that the jails were at a “breaking point,” due to the overcrowding and neglect caused by increasing population and a sheriff’s deputy understaffing crisis. In April 2026, the average daily population in the jails was around 1,250 people.
That count has been dropping precipitously since.
It is not due to declining arrests or prosecutions: The number of pending criminal cases in San Francisco has stayed steady since the beginning of this year, and arrests are going up. The district attorney’s office was presented with 898 arrests this August, up from 712 in August of last year.
Instead, the most likely cause is a chain reaction that started in 2021 when that cheeseburger was stolen 10 miles south of the San Francisco city limits.
That January, Kowalczyk used someone else’s credit card to buy a $7 burger from a Burlingame Five Guys. He was caught and charged with felony identity theft. Because of his long rap sheet and history of noncompliance with release conditions, he was determined to be a flight risk and given $75,000 bail.
Kowalczyk challenged that bail as excessive, based on a then-recent court ruling on bail limits.
The court instead revoked his bail entirely and held him in jail for six months.
Kowalczyk’s attorneys argued that his detention was unreasonable. The case, In re Kowalczyk, went to the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco before ultimately arriving at the California Supreme Court.
On April 30, 2026, the state Supreme Court ruled that unattainable bail cannot be used to detain a defendant, and that only those who pose a serious risk of danger to their communities may be held in jail while awaiting trial.
In May 2026, the jail population began dropping.
Bookings have actually gone up over the last year, said San Francisco Assistant Sheriff, John Ramirez, during a presentation to the Sheriff’s Departmental Oversight Board on the issue of overcrowding in the jails.
“But releases, because of the Kowalczyk decision, have also increased,” he said.
Instead of holding defendants in jail, he told the oversight board on Sept. 5, the sheriff’s office is seeing judges ordering more electronic supervision, like ankle monitors.
That day, the jail population dipped below 1,000 for the first time in years. With courts closed over the long weekend, the number of people in jail was back up to 1,051 on Monday, Sept. 7, but it appears the population will keep trending downward.
In the courtroom of San Francisco Superior Court Judge Dawn Payne on Sept. 1, 2026, Payne told a defendant that under Kowalczyk, she now had to find him to be a risk of “serious harm to others” in order to keep him in jail pretrial.
Before Kowalczyk, she said, he would have been ordered to stay in custody for his previous track record.
“That’s no longer the standard,” she said, releasing him on electronic monitoring instead.
If the daily jail count is down that much but bookings and court appearances remain the same, shouldn’t there be less of a need for overtime? The SFSD has some of the highest paid city employees because of OT but it doesn’t makes sense if the jail count is as low as this story claims. Is the SFSD that understaffed?
We should abolish jails and prisons . Tear them down and build affordable housing . Prisons are the creation of white supremacy, racism and fascism .defund the police . Use that money to build affordable housing .
Kowalczyk is small time compared to the insider trading and history of fraud by the currently rich. Glad to see we’re not paying extra to keep him in jail.
There should be an increase of subjects who have multiple pending cases. Eventually the cases will be settled for a plea to something less (way less) than what they were originally charge with. Kowalczyk will upend the already loose system in SF.
Can judges hold defendants in contempt for non-compliance with previous release terms, and jail them for that?
Yes of course more affordable housing, however…..
With both empathy and concern, I felt Morticias comment did make the most sense. Why would anyone vote down. I did not even attempt to read the entire article as this has gone on for. too long
This is starting to make sense! I’m seeing so many folks with ankle monitors strapped to their legs, smoking fentanyl on the sidewalks of the Mission lately…Who is monitoring the monitors, I wonder? No one, it seems, as obviously consuming illegal narcotics (in public, no less) is a crime, and a violation of the conditions of their release, unless I am mistaken? The article doesn’t speak to this issue – would it be possible to follow up with SFPD and the DA’s office to find out how (or if?) the folks being released are being actually monitored? And additionally, how is it determined who is a “risk” and who is not? I’m curious, as I see people who are obviously risks walking around with monitors on and no one seems to care.
Morticia: risks to who? Only themselves if they persist in smoking fentanyl. I can see you mean well, but does this person’s addiction affect you in any substantive way? Should we resume “ugly laws” from 100 years ago and incarcerate those who offend our sense of aesthetics? We could prevent his overdose by inviting him inside in a drop in center with counselors and observers who will talk to him about treatment for his addiction? Of course Mayor Lurie wants to “clean up” 6th street by removing drop in help… kind of a vicious cyle,,,