Sheriff candidates duke it out over

upervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s two chief rivals in the sheriff’s race wasted no time excoriating his proposal to give tax breaks to San Francisco businesses that hire felons.

“It is sad irony that the supervisor’s proposal puts victimizers before victims when it comes to incentivizing job creation,” said Chris Cunnie, a retired police officer and police union president who once served as undersheriff under Michal Hennessey, the eight-term sheriff who is retiring.

Cunnie is locked in a tight race to succeed Hennessey with Mirkarimi and Capt. Paul Miyamoto, a 15-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department.

“What politician Ross Mirkarimi is proposing via legislation is not fair treatment but special treatment,” Miyamoto said.

“If sincere,” he added, “his ideas are unfair to hard-working, law-abiding residents of San Francisco, and would needlessly coddle at-risk individuals whom we in the (Sheriff’s) Department are trying to teach more responsible behavior.”

Mirkarimi’s response: “Typical right-wing response from my opponents. With a 65 percent recidivism rate in San Francisco, anyone who can’t see this as a crime-prevention strategy has his head in the sand.”

The legislation that Mirkarimi introduced this week would give companies a $10,000 payroll tax credit for every new person hired who has a past felony conviction. Participation would be voluntary.

The idea — already on the books in Philadelphia and a handful of states — is to give employers a financial incentive to hire felons, a group with a much higher unemployment rate than those without a criminal past. The federal government also provides similar tax incentives.