San Francisco Dropping Lots of Narcotics Prosecutions Under Jenkins
A 2023 story in Mission Local detailed how the new district attorney for San Francisco, Brooke Jenkins, was overseeing an increase in the conviction rate in the city. More defendants were being convicted and sentenced rather than being sent to diversion programs—non-jail sentences like drug rehabilitation.
The recent change was ostensibly an indication of Jenkins’ tough on crime approach to the office: she was still filing charges at a similar rate yet winning more cases.
While all of that was true at the time the article was published, her office has seen a steep drop in the number of narcotics cases charged during her tenure since then. What was a 73 percent prosecution rate for narcotics crimes is now down to 50 percent. In 2023, 408 cases—25 percent of narcotics cases that year—were discharged, meaning charges were dropped before being filed. While that has since gone down, it’s an astounding amount.
Rather than prosecuting new cases, the district attorneys’ office is now more likely to move-to-revoke (MTR) cases—which means revoking a prior probation and moving forward on the prior charges that the probation was set under—or referring charges to other agencies.
The change is likely related to how the police—mainly San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) but also other entities like the county sheriff’s office and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)—were making 983 more narcotics arrests a year in 2025 compared to 2022.
Improving Conviction Rate
Prosecution rates in San Francisco hit a historic low in 2013. While that was under George Gasçon who took the reins in 2011, the trend started under the previous district attorney Kamala Harris who dropped plenty of cases, particularly those related to fraud, theft, and counterfeiting. Under Gasçon is when the trend would reverse itself.
While Gascon took on more cases, he failed to convict on many of them, instead preferring diversions. While Jenkins declines to prosecute many narcotics cases, conviction rates have significantly improved under her tenure.
Essentially, the complete collapse of the DA’s conviction rate largely under Gasçon in favor of diversions has flipped. At a time felony conviction rates barely made it above 55 percent but have since risen above 70 percent.
