Staffing shortages, a growing case load and high drop out rate have plagued San Francisco’s Drug Court in recent years. City officials debated the program’s effectiveness and future at a hearing at City Hall Thursday after a Chronicle investigation earlier this year raised serious questions about the program’s effectiveness and scope. It found that some defendants in the program had been charged with serious, sometimes violent, crimes.
Defense attorneys and city officials involved in Drug Court answered sharp questions from lawmakers during a hearing Thursday at City Hall.
The Drug Court was established in 1995 to create an alternative to criminal prosecution and jail time for people convicted of low-level crimes who are struggling with addiction, but in 2018, a state law expanded the program, allowing defendants diagnosed with mental health disorders to be diverted into the program out of traditional criminal proceedings. It also let defense attorneys ask judges to allow their clients to be diverted into Drug Court even if a prosecutor objected…