Mayor Lurie Takes Major Step Forward for San Francisco Safety, Announces "Rebuilding the Ranks" Roadmap to Fully Staff Police Department, Sheriff's Office

SAN FRANCISCO – Mayor Daniel Lurie today took a major step forward in his efforts to keep San Francisco residents and visitors safe, unveiling “Rebuilding the Ranks,” a new plan to address the persistent and severe sworn member staffing shortages facing the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and Sheriff’s Office. The SFPD is more than 500 officers short of the recommended minimum staffing level of more than 2,000 sworn officers.

Codified in an executive directive signed today, Rebuilding the Ranks lays out a roadmap to return SFPD and the Sheriff’s Office to full sworn member staffing. It outlines short-term actions to ease the burden on the current officer ranks and long-term strategies to build a sustainable pipeline of qualified officers. These reforms will provide law enforcement agencies with the resources necessary to keep San Francisco’s streets safe, while managing the burden on overworked uniformed personnel, and reduce the strain on the city’s budget with more sustainable and less costly staffing practices.

Rebuilding the Ranks will build on Mayor Lurie’s early signs of progress on public safety and street conditions. In his first four months in office, overall crime was down 28% year over year, including a 29% decrease in property crime and a 16% drop in violent crime. Car break-ins are at a 22-year low, and street encampments are at their lowest number since 2019. While crime is falling, recruitment is rising. Yesterday, Mayor Lurie and SFPD Chief Bill Scott addressed the third consecutive full class of new SFPD recruits, a major shift after six years without a full class.

“Today, we’re taking a major step to tackle our police and sheriff staffing crisis and make San Francisco safer. Our Rebuilding the Ranks directive lays out a clear plan to restore our sworn public safety workforce starting immediately,” said Mayor Lurie. “These reforms will literally put more officers on our streets. They will help keep our communities safe—and make sure our officers and deputies have the support they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. Thank you to our law enforcement leaders, union representatives, and members of the Board of Supervisors for their willingness to work together to ensure that every resident, worker, and visitor feels safe in our city.”

Full staffing of sworn officers is a critical piece of Mayor Lurie’s efforts to keep San Franciscans safe. For Lunar New Year Parade and NBA All-Star Weekend in February, both the SFPD and Sheriff’s Office—along with other key public safety departments—were fully staffed, helping deliver the safest parade weekend on record and a 31% decrease in crime from 2024. At the same time, the SFPD has effectively and responsibly deployed technology to supplement officers’ work in support of public safety efforts, with the Real-Time Investigation Center (RTIC) having assisted in over 500 arrests.

This new plan also represents another step taken by Mayor Lurie to keep the city’s streets safe and clean. Early in his administration, the mayor took action to create the San Francisco Police Department Hospitality Zone Task Force to improve public safety downtown 365 days a year. Since then, he has reimagined street homeless outreach, creating a neighborhood-based model that integrates law enforcement with public health professionals and trained outreach workers. He has also improved coordination within law enforcement, standing up a mobile triage center on Sixth Street that engaged nearly 17,000 people and produced nearly 350 arrests, seizing more than 650 grams of narcotics, in six weeks.

"Ensuring the SFPD is fully staffed is crucial to alleviate workload strain on our hard-working officers and to sustain the momentum towards meeting the public safety needs of the city," said SFPD Chief Bill Scott. "I want to thank Mayor Daniel Lurie for making this a priority and for assisting in getting more officers in the academy and on the street."

“Mayor Lurie’s Executive Directive addresses a critical need to relieve the pressure on our public safety personnel by reducing overtime, exhaustion, burnout, and backlog in our jails and courts,” said Sheriff Paul Miyamoto. “This isn’t just about supporting my deputies and SFPD officers, it’s about making sure crime is fought, justice is served, rights are protected, and San Francisco is safer for everyone.”

Despite previous attempts to fully support San Francisco law enforcement agencies, SFPD and the Sheriff’s Office face major staffing shortfalls. These shortfalls hinder the agencies’ abilities to fulfill their core responsibilities, and result in reduced neighborhood presence across the city, slower response times, and an overreliance on costly and unsustainable overtime. San Francisco’s situation is exacerbated by unique structural issues: a slow hiring process, high attrition to other jurisdictions, difficulties attracting sufficient recruits, and the assignment of officers to non-core functions.

"It is time for San Francisco to tackle public safety with the smart approach of utilizing new technology through strategic deployment of our public safety agencies to patrol our streets and investigate crime, while prioritizing citizen privacy," said District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan. "We can make San Francisco safer without compromising reform and accountability. I trust Mayor Lurie and Interim Chief Paul Yep will get this done in the best interests of San Franciscans."

“San Francisco continues to face a catastrophic police short-staffing crisis, and there are too many public safety problems we’ll be helpless to solve if we can’t fully staff our public safety agencies,” said District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey. “I applaud Mayor Lurie on an ambitious and comprehensive plan that prioritizes public safety and will deliver on the promise a fully staffed police department and sheriff’s office that our residents, visitors and commuters deserve.”

“When public safety is a core function of government and we’re short 500 police officers for a city our size, we must get creative. Relying on overtime is not an option. That’s why I’m supporting Mayor Lurie’s actions to address our public safety staffing crisis,” said District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio. “To fully staff SFPD, we need to recruit more young people who want to be police officers. But until then, a reserve officer program will let recently retired officers still in their prime serve in full patrol and investigative roles. This improves upon our ambassador program where retired officers only walk the beat with a radio. Merchants and residents who have been asking for more protection will welcome this change.”

“It is critical that we work towards fully staffed law enforcement agencies so they may fulfill their public safety responsibility to keep our residents safe,” said District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. “By delegating administrative duties to civilian personnel and increasing the time in field for sworn officers, Mayor Lurie’s Rebuilding the Ranks is a thoughtful approach to addressing our current staffing shortage towards this goal.”

"This Executive Directive provides the framework San Francisco urgently needs to restore staffing in our Police and Sheriff's departments,” said District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter. Through this set of actions, I'm confident we will see improved retention and recruitment of public safety professionals to serve our city. The directive aligns our city to be creative, nimble, and innovative in working to build back our public safety resources." 

“If we’re serious about public safety, we have to get serious about modernizing how we deliver it,” said District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill. “I’m proud to be a partner of Mayor Lurie’s as we work to make our law enforcement more effective, our investigations faster, and our neighborhoods safer.”

Key Components of Rebuilding the Ranks include:

100-Day Actions:

• Launch a Reserve Officer Program to allow recently retired SFPD officers to return to service in patrol and investigative roles, keeping more officers in service and lessening the burden on other active personnel
• Establish a Sheriff’s Office Retention Program that will allow recently retired deputies the option to return to full-duty service
• Create a Special Events Officer Program to permit recently retired peace officers from San Francisco and neighboring jurisdictions to support parades, concerts, sporting events, and other scheduled activities
• Streamline the hiring process in coordination with the Department of Human Resources to minimize administrative steps and eliminate bottlenecks
• Review and, where appropriate, propose reforms to academy operations to improve graduation rates without compromising standards
• Partner with the private sector to support recruitment outreach, performance-based marketing, and process improvements
• Establish an interagency working group between the Police Department and Sheriff’s Office to evaluate potential resource and personnel sharing for core patrol and investigative duties
• Evaluate and expand technological tools, such as the Drones as First Responder program and Real Time Information Center, that can increase investigative and patrol efficiency
• Leverage data and technology solutions to shorten hiring pipeline

Six-Month Actions:

• Evaluate Police Department employment practices—including “10B” assignments, sick leave usage, and overtime—to ensure availability to work and regular assignment duties are not being inappropriately avoided, and publish a public report with findings
• Lessen the burden on sworn staff by identifying administrative assignments that can be performed by qualified civilian personnel
• Reallocate sworn personnel to patrol or investigative roles from civilianized roles
• Establish a private-public partnership with community business districts and companies to better coordinate public safety resources
• Develop legislation to update retirement policies to encourage lateral hiring from other agencies

After one year, the city will issue a public progress report evaluating the respective departments’ efforts to meet staffing goals. The reports shall include an analysis of reforms implemented, and, if necessary, recommendations for further action.