District attorneys in some Bay Area counties, including San Francisco , are struggling to comply with a new state law requiring prosecutors to make charging decisions without viewing information about suspects' races, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In most cases, a lack of funding and difficulties implementing new technologies were at the root of their problems, prosecutors said. The measure, which took effect Jan. 1 , mandates a practice known as "race-blind" charging. District attorneys' offices must now redact information that could identify a person's race from police reports before making a charging decision, through either autonomous technology or an employee who isn't otherwise involved in the case. The law seeks to eliminate overt and subconscious bias in a system that historically has yielded disproportionate impacts for defendants of color through harsh punishments, such as lengthy prison terms. As part of the race-blind process, redactions include not only the suspect's name and race, but other potential tip-offs, including the name and races of victims, the neighborhood in which the crime was committed, and the suspect's criminal history.
The adjustment was relatively painless for the dozens of offices that already use a case management system that offers the race redaction technology. For others, including the San Francisco District Attorney's Office , the shift requires finding hundreds of thousands of dollars in already cash-strapped budgets — and remaining out of compliance with the law until they do. "Right now we are in a holding pattern," said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins . "We've not been able to kick this off of the ground because we just simply don't have the tools that we need in order to do it." Jenkins said the policy will require a roughly $1.4 million annual boost to the office's budget, which would include $200,000 for new software and the hiring of six paralegals and one additional attorney. Her office's request for the funding didn't make it through last year's budget cycle, but Jenkins presented the issue again in a preliminary discussion with newly elected Mayor Daniel Lurie. "He is, of course, trying to balance everything ... with an $867 million deficit," Jenkins said. San Francisco does, have experience with race-blind charging. Former District Attorney George Gascón in 2019 launched the Stanford Computational Policy Lab's redaction technology, which has served as a model for other counties.
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