As California's criminal justice system begins a major overhaul, San Francisco voters will pick a new sheriff for the first time in more than three decades.
The three front-runners are Chris Cunnie, the former police union president and beat cop who served as board president of the drug treatment program Walden House; policy wonk Ross Mirkarimi, a liberal city lawmaker and police academy graduate who chairs the Board of Supervisors' Public Safety Committee; and Paul Miyamoto, a career Sheriff's Department employee who has risen through the ranks and now serves as a captain.
They entered the race after Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who hasn't lost an election since his first run for the office in 1979, announced in February that he would retire. His unprecedented eighth term ends in January.
The Sheriff's Department oversees six county jails, provides security at City Hall and in the local courts, carries out evictions, and assists the Police Department in enforcement actions.
Diversion of prisoners
But Hennessey's successor will have the added challenge of helping implement a new state mandate, known as realignment, that eventually will divert tens of thousands of nonviolent offenders away from state prison into county jails, probation and programs that allow convicts to serve their sentences at home or in alternative community programs.
Over the next year, San Francisco is bracing for an influx of an estimated 645 additional offenders who otherwise would have been sent to the state penitentiary. The first wave of 30 arrived this month.
The issue of how realignment will play out in San Francisco has been a key issue in the run-up to the Nov. 8 sheriff's election.
The top three contenders are locked in a too-close-to-call race, polling has shown. The fourth candidate in the race who lags in fund-raising, endorsements and fielding a robust campaign operation is former Deputy Sheriff David Wong, who headed the deputy sheriffs union and was fired after Hennessey determined he had engaged in excessive force.
The front-runners in the race each lay claim to ties to Hennessey, the longest-serving elected official in San Francisco history. They promise to continue his trend-setting legacy, which has emphasized rehabilitation over pure punishment. Under his direction, inmates have access to in-custody education through a charter high school, job training, drug treatment and antiviolence training - all initiatives aimed at reducing their chance of committing another crime after they're released.
Diverse backgrounds
While all three candidates tout their leadership and experience, they each have vastly different backgrounds they would bring to running one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the state with 850 deputies.
Miyamoto said that with 15 years in the Sheriff's Department, he would bring stability to the department when Hennessey leaves.
"The best person to continue that legacy and build on his foundation is someone who has been a part of carrying out that vision. That is me," said Miyamoto, who has managed county jails, overseen the department's training and investigative units and served as a SWAT team leader.
Miyamoto has the near-unanimous endorsement as the top pick of the sheriff's deputies union and the professional association representing managers and supervisors in the department.
Unlike the Police Department, which is overseen by a civilian commission and is subject to investigation by an independent agency that fields civilian accusations of police misconduct, reviewing in-house investigations and rendering discipline in the Sheriff's Department falls squarely on the elected sheriff.
Mirkarimi has suggested that Miyamoto's strong backing by the sworn staff, and Cunnie's close ties to the law enforcement community cemented during his years as a patrolman and head of the police officers union, would not serve the best interests of the public when it comes to ensuring that the men and women who staff the jails are held accountable.
Independent voice
Mirkarimi said there needs to be "almost a firewall" between the sheriff and the sworn staff. "You need to have someone independent, civilian, in the chief executive position." It's a dynamic, he said, that has well served Hennessey, a onetime prisoner rights lawyer with no peace officer pedigree. Hennessey, in all his campaigns, never secured the endorsement of the deputy sheriffs union.
Still, Mirkarimi, a credentialed peace officer who investigated white-collar crimes for the district attorney's office, said he respects the role of law enforcement and would be a forceful advocate for the deputies and their supervisors to assure they have the resources and training they need to do their jobs effectively. As supervisor, Mirkarimi has focused extensively on criminal justice issues, pushing for more community policing and programs to help inmates transition back into the community.
Hennessey endorsed Mirkarimi, a fellow progressive, to succeed him. Hennessey had even offered Mirkarimi the No. 2 spot as undersheriff, but Mirkarimi turned that down and in 2009, Cunnie took that spot.
Miyamoto said that while Hennessey gave Mirkarimi his blessing in the race, he has secured Hennessey's "professional endorsement," having been promoted to captain and handed several high-profile assignments.
Shortly after Cunnie's 20-year-old son died in a fall 11 months ago, he resigned as undersheriff and his interest in a run for sheriff appeared to wither. In the end, he entered the race late but quickly gained traction, challenging Miyamoto on the law enforcement front and Mirkarimi on the political one.
Cunnie, now an adviser to state Attorney General Kamala Harris, served as her chief investigator when she was San Francisco district attorney. He also ran the city's emergency communications operation when Gavin Newsom was mayor.
"Over the past 30 years, I have built relationships in law enforcement, at City Hall, in Sacramento, in the nonprofit community, and can bring people together," Cunnie said. "That's the kind of leadership the Sheriff's Department needs now."
Ranked-choice voting process
The next San Francisco sheriff will be selected under the system of ranked-choice voting, Here's how it works:
-- Voters rank their top three choices in order of preference.
-- If a candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, he or she is declared the winner.
-- If no candidate wins a majority, the candidate who received the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and his or her backers' second choices are counted in the next round.
-- The process continues, with one candidate being eliminated each round and his or her voters being assigned to their next-ranked candidate, until a candidate reaches a majority.
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