SAN FRANCISCO—On Thursday morning, June 11, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced in a press release that the San Francisco police will stop responding to “non-criminal activities”. This announcement comes as part of Mayor Breed’s plan to implement police reform. Under the proposal, officers will no longer be allowed to respond to non-criminal activities, such as neighbor disputes, reports on homeless people, school discipline interventions, and others. Trained and non-armed professionals will respond to these non-criminal disputes instead.
Other steps of the reform plan include banning military-style weapons, banning chokeholds and strangleholds, using the minimum amount of force necessary, redirecting police funds for racial equity, and requiring comprehensive reporting. It is not known how much time, money and resources that the San Francisco Police Department spends responding to non-criminal calls. However, a 2016 report from the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office does give some insight, and estimates that the city spent $21 million in 2015 to enforce quality of life laws against the city’s homeless population. In addition, the report also states that police accounted for more than 90% of those costs, and responded to more than 60,000 “non-criminal” incident during 2015.
“San Francisco has made progress reforming our police department, but we know that we still have significant work to do,” said Mayor London Breed during a press conference. “We know that a lack of equity in our society overall leads to a lot of the problems that police are being asked to solve. We are going to keep pushing for additional reforms and continue to find ways to reinvest in communities that have historically be under deserved and harmed by systemic racism.”
This proposal comes after weeks of demonstrations and protests across the country have called for police reform following the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died in police custody.
“We understand that it’s necessary for law enforcement to listen to the African American community and embrace courageous changes to address disparate policing practices, and we recognize it will take sacrifice on our part to fulfill the promise of reform.” Said San Francisco Chief of Police Bill Scott in a public statement.
The City of San Francisco will implement these changes on an ongoing basis over the next year, with some changes going into effect immediately.