BAIL RATES RAISED SHARPLY FOR MANY CRIMES IN S.F.

Moving to dispel San Francisco's reputation among police and prosecutors as
an island of leniency for crooks, the city's judges have vastly increased
bail rates for dozens of crimes ranging from burglary and crack dealing to
rape and stalking.

``It's about time,'' Lieutenant Kitt Crenshaw of the Police Department's
narcotics division said. ``We were decades behind other counties.''

Crenshaw said San Francisco's bail was so low for drug offenses -- $2,500
in many cases, compared with four to 10 times that in surrounding counties
- -- that the city was a magnet for dealers.

``We arrest guys coming out of the BART stations every single day,
especially at Civic Center Plaza and Tenderloin -- the destination for the
East Bay commute dope dealers,'' Crenshaw said.

Supervisor Jose Medina, who held a hearing on the issue in May, said the
city had not reviewed its bail rates across the board since the 1960s.

``The lower bail rates did serve as an inducement for people to come in and
deal drugs in San Francisco,'' he said. ``The bail rates are now much more
in line with the other counties.''

Not just burglars and dope peddlers face more time in lockup unless they
come up with the cash under the increase approved October 1 by a committee
of Municipal and Superior Court judges.

The bail rates for both home-invasion robbery and rape went to $50,000 from
$20,000. The bail for stalking is now $25,000, up from $10,000.

San Francisco's new bail rates are still lower than surrounding counties'
for some crimes. In San Mateo County, for example, bail for selling crack
cocaine is $20,000, compared with $15,000 in San Francisco.

The co-chairman of the judges' bail committee, Municipal Court Judge Philip
Moscone, said the panel had heard the message from the community.

Moscone said his own review of files showed some defendants who had come
from Oakland and had been arrested for selling drugs ``right around public
transportation.''

``That was certainly a factor,'' he said. Other changes in the bail for
property crimes, such as burglary, came as a matter of course as the bail
schedule had not been changed for five years, he said.

``There has been inflation since we have looked at these things,'' Moscone
said. ``You look at the crimes, and you look at the effect they have on the
community. It was time to make a change.''

He said the judges had been reluctant to raise bails before because of the
threat of a federal government takeover of the city's overcrowded jail
system.

``Before, we were under the gun from the federal courts to keep our jail
population down,'' Moscone said. A federal consent degree governing the
jail system was lifted in December 1996, after overcrowding was eased.

Officials of the Sheriff's Department fear that the bail increase could
pack San Francisco's jails again. Even with the previous low bail, drug
offenders made up a third of the inmates in the system.

Eileen Hirst, spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department, said she expects
the county's six jails to be filled to the limit. The population had
already begun to climb since last fall and now stands at about 2,100.

``It's bound to have some impact on the jail population,'' she said of the
bail changes.

Chief Assistant Public Defender Peter Keane lamented the new bails as
deepening a division of the classes in the judicial system.

``It sets two very different standards of justice,'' he said. ``Someone who
commits those kinds of crimes with a fat checkbook is out on bail, whereas
a poor person is not.

``It is inherently unfair,'' he said. ``People should not be singled out on
the basis of their poverty and treated more punitively.''

Vernon Grigg III, assistant district attorney in charge of narcotics
prosecutions, said the bail is the same for everyone in San Francisco, so
the argument is flawed.

``Like everything else in America, you are free to buy it, but you are on
your own when it comes to the price,'' Grigg said.

Captain Dennis Martel of the Police Department's Southern Station said that
although bails have been raised, the courts seem too willing to release
drug dealers -- even repeat offenders -- without any bail at all.

``If you are caught dealing, you are a menace to the neighborhood, and you
should not be released,'' Martel said. ``The next step is to tighten up the
loopholes, to the extent they exist,'' that allow offenders to be released
on their own recognizance.