SF supervisor calls for 100 arrests per night on drugriddled streets
Jan 03, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- A San Francisco supervisor unveiled an aggressive plan to clean up the streets of his district on Friday.
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who oversees the city's SoMa neighborhood, said in a press release that he wants to see 100 arrests per night. Dorsey also called for court-mandated treatment for drug users.
“As we begin the new year, new approaches are urgently needed to restore order to our streets, to diminish San Francisco’s attraction as a destination city for drug use and drug dealing, and to make lifesaving interventions in behavior that’s deadlier and more costly than ever before,” Dorsey said.
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Several members of the community have criticized his idea. The San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness called the plan "a page right out of Project 2025."
"Reports of an initiative advocating for mass arrests along the 6th Street corridor as a pathway to treatment or detox are deeply concerning and counterproductive," San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer said.
While Dorsey wants his plan implemented around downtown San Francisco, he singled out Sixth Street as an area where the city's drug problem is especially bad. The San Francisco Police Department estimated that 200 people use drugs on a quarter-mile stretch of the street each night.
Dorsey himself is a recovered addict. He believes the city's current practices simply move drug users around the city, which leads to "drug enablism and neglectful cruelty."
He wrote that San Franciscans should expect to see laws against public drug use fully enforced. However, Jackie Fielder, who was recently elected to be District 9's supervisor, said that arresting people for drug use has been San Francisco's strategy since 2021. She called arresting drug users "not a serious strategy for San Francisco."
Dorsey feels otherwise.
“Get drug-related offenders off the streets — and optimally into drug treatment — rather than simply moved to different streets,” Dorsey said of his plan's goal.