Jails of San Francisco, California

San Francisco County operates eight jails, with approximately 55,000 people booked annually. Two of these jails are located in the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street. One of the jails is located in ward 7D/7L in San Francisco General Hospital. Two jails are located at the San Bruno Complex Program Facility, located ten miles south of San Francisco.

The jails are administered by 800 deputy sheriffs of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. The department is headed by the San Francisco Sheriff, currently Michael Hennessey. [http://sfsheriff.tripod.com/punksheriff.htm]

The newest San Francisco jail complex is located near the Hall of Justice on Seventh Street. Opened in 1994, the complex is actually two jails. This main complex jail is a "direct supervision facility [that] has become a national model for program-oriented prisoner rehabilitation." The second, which acts as the main intake and release facility for the city, was praised by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Allan Temko as "a stunning victory for architectural freedom over bureaucratic stupidity."cite web | title= San Francisco Sheriff's Department : Jail | url= http://www.sfgov.org/site/sheriff_index.asp?id=25268 | accessdate=March 23 | accessyear=2006 | publisher = San Francisco Sheriff's Department ]

The first jail established in San Francisco was demanded by the alcalde, later first mayor John W. Geary and set up in a beached brig the "Ephemia" on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove. Later there was a jail on Broadway and jails within the two halls of justice on the east side of Portsmouth Square. The fourth floor of the post earthquake Hall of Justice on Kearney served as a jail, and there was the old Ingleside lockup at the site of the San Francisco City College.

;Intake & Release
*County Jail #9 (425 7th Street, near Hall of Justice, San Francisco)

;Classification
*County Jail #8 (Hall of Justice, 6th Floor, San Francisco)

;Housing
* County Jail #1 (Hall of Justice, 6th Floor, San Francisco)
* County Jail #2 (Hall of Justice, 7th Floor, San Francisco)
* County Jail #3 (San Bruno) (Vacant and due for destruction)
* County Jail #5 (San Bruno) (New state of the art facility opened in 2006)
* County Jail #7 (San Bruno)
* Ward 7D/7L (San Francisco General Hospital)
* County Jail #8 (425 7th Street, San Francisco)

References