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Under the leadership of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office works tirelessly to restore victims, resolve harm, and break the cycle of crime. As gatekeepers of the criminal justice system, prosecutors have both a legal and ethical duty to ensure the system operates effectively and without bias to protect public safety.
Our public data dashboards reflect our commitment to 1) using data to drive office decisions and 2) ensuring that the public has access to accurate and timely information about what our office does. In 2018, the SFDA was the first prosecutor’s office in California and the second in the United States to publish prosecution data online in a public dashboard. As stewards of the public trust and guardians of the constitution and the criminal justice system, SFDA is committed to public accountability and transparency; toward that end, we continually strive to update and improve our dashboards.
SFDA currently has seven public data dashboards: 1) Incidents, Arrests, and Prosecutions, 2) District Attorney Actions on Arrests Presented, 3) Cases Prosecuted, 4) Case Resolutions, 5) Outcomes and Desistance, 6) Independent Investigations Bureau, and 7) Victims Served by the Victims Services Division.
Details about data sources and limitations for each dashboard are provided below.
This dashboard links data from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) on reported crime incidents to data from SFDA on arrests that were presented to our office and cases that were prosecuted for those same incidents. The incident number, which originates with SFPD, is the basis upon which incidents, arrests, and criminal cases are linked. It is important to note that this is an imperfect process because one incident can result in multiple arrests and criminal cases and multiple incidents can result in the arrest and prosecution of a single individual. Despite these limitations, this is the best available methodology with which to present data on the work of the SFDA in the context of larger crime patterns in San Francisco.
Additional data notes:
After law enforcement has made an arrest for suspected criminal activity, the arresting agency presents its evidence to the District Attorney’s Office to determine what, if any, charges can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This prosecutorial decision to file or to reject arrest charges represents the first, and one of the most important, decisions of the District Attorney’s Office. In addition to either filing new charges or declining to file charges (“discharging” the arrest), the prosecutor may also take other actions, such as initiating a motion to revoke probation or parole, referring the case back to the arresting agency for further investigation, or referring the case to another criminal justice agency.
This dashboard presents data on every arrest that has been presented to the SFDA since 2011 and the “action” decision made by our office on each, based on data from the SFDA’s internal case management system. By including new filings as well as other prosecutorial actions and dividing them by the total number of arrests presented, we measure the total “Action Taken” rate of the office.
Additional data notes:
This dashboard presents data on all cases presented to the District Attorney’s Office in which the office takes action to prosecute a case, either by filing new criminal charges or by filing a motion to revoke probation or parole (MTR). This does not include cases in which the San Francisco Adult Probation Department or the state Division of Adult Parole Operations files a motion to revoke. For cases in which SFDA files a new criminal charge, the most serious offense type is categorized as the most serious offense for which SFDA prosecuted the defendant. For cases in which SFDA files an MTR the most serious offense is categorized as the most serious offense for which the person was initially prosecuted. This is because a filing of an MTR means that new criminal charges were not filed for the new arresting offense, but rather that the District Attorney’s Office is seeking a new sanction as part of the sentence of a prior criminal conviction.
Additional data notes:
This dashboard presents data on all cases prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office that have reached a final resolution, or case disposition. These dispositions include final resolutions that convey the completion of the criminal process (i.e., an acquittal, conviction, or dismissal), as well as a number of resolutions indicating that, while the particular criminal case has completed its processing in the San Francisco Superior Court, the defendant may continue to be involved in the justice system via a grand jury indictment, referral to the juvenile justice system, or other ongoing justice system actions. Because of the case tracking systems used in the San Francisco Superior Court, these cases are assigned new court numbers and thus show up as distinct cases in the data available to the District Attorney’s Office.
In addition to presenting data on case resolutions, this dashboard also provides data on sentences for cases that resulted in convictions. Both pages of this dashboard (case resolutions and sentences) include every case prosecuted by SFDA that has resolved since 2011.
Additional data notes:
The Outcomes and Desistance Dashboard is a tool for understanding the extent to which individuals who are convicted of crimes in San Francisco successfully avoid subsequent involvement in the criminal justice system. Toward that end, this dashboard compares outcomes for individuals convicted of a felony or misdemeanor in calendar years 2013 through 2018 and sentenced to county jail or local supervision in San Francisco. Subsequent contact is tracked three years after release from jail or the date of conviction, whichever occurs later, at three distinct criminal justice contact points:
The Post-Conviction Outcomes Dashboard is part of a larger movement within the City and County of San Francisco to use data, technology, and research as tools to reduce incarceration and racial disparities in our criminal justice system. Tools like this dashboard help us create safer communities and advance the national dialogue on best practices for local justice systems.
This data sharing and visualization project was developed by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office through the San Francisco Sentencing Commission in collaboration with the Sheriff’s Department and the California Policy Lab. The Justice Dashboard was created, in part, with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as a part of the Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails.
Additional data notes:
Promoting accountability in law enforcement, and preventing unlawful conduct that harms the community, requires transparency. For too long in the United States, officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths, and use-of-force incidents have been shrouded in secrecy. As the lead criminal investigator of these incidents in the City and County of San Francisco, the Internal Investigations Bureau documents and tracks every officer-involved shooting and in-custody death. The IIB Dashboards provide near real time data, broken down by victim demographics and agency.
While the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has been collecting data on officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths since the late 1990s, the data from before 2011 may be incomplete. All incidents since 2011 are represented in the dashboards.
In part stemming from the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement’s recommendations, IIB was formed in late 2016. On April 10, 2019, IIB and SFPD executed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding the investigation of officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths, and uses of force resulting in serious bodily injury. SFDA has prosecuted over 20 officers for police misconduct.
This dashboard presents information on the characteristics of victims served by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Victim Services Division (VSD), based on data housed in the District Attorney’s Office’s case management system. These data are entered manually by our office’s victim advocates, who provide direct services, advocacy and general support to victims.
This dashboard presents information on every victim who has interacted with and/or received services from VSD since 2011. This includes people who were victimized before 2011 but have continued to receive VSD services in subsequent years. Individuals can receive services across multiple years but will never be counted more than once each year.
Additional data notes