San Francisco’s controversial Rapid Enforcement, Support, Evaluation, and Triage (RESET) Center has a new public dashboard, the first data from which show that the involuntary sobering center is already reinforcing racial policing. The dashboard was unveiled earlier in July, following RESET’s launch in early May.
Touted by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office (SFSO) as “California’s first law enforcement-led crisis stabilization center,” RESET holds people who’ve just been arrested for public intoxication or being under the influence of a controlled substance. They are detained until staff give them a certificate declaring that they’re able to care for themselves, after which they can voluntarily stay for up to 23 hours. Earlier in 2026, an internal city memo obtained by Mission Local warned that RESET carries a “very high legal risk” of being classified as a jail or a detention facility.
The facility is located in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood, and only accepts detainees from District 6, which also includes the Tenderloin. Black residents comprise less than 10 percent of the population in those neighborhoods, while white residents comprise a little over 27 percent. But at publication time the dashboard shows that a little over half of the 984 detainees admitted so far were white, and a little over one-quarter were Black, meaning Black people are being the most disproportionately detained.
RESET is located directly across from the primary intake facility for the county jail system, and San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto has stated that RESET’s benefits include “easing the strain on our jails.” But a litany of conditions make many detainees ineligible for RESET, including the administration of Narcan, active warrants, psychiatric criteria, and possession of controlled substances and/or personal property above a certain threshold.
According to a San Francisco Civil Grand Jury report published in June, 95 percent of people “held in the SFSO jail are charged with felony crimes, while typical misdemeanor-only arrestees without warrants are booked and released within a day or so, many before they are assigned a bed.” RESET’s existence may encourage officers to arrest people they might otherwise have left alone.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved RESET in early 2026 by a vote of 9-2. Both the supervisors who voted against expressed concerns that there wouldn’t be any tangible way to measure the impact of the center.
MAKING AN IMPACT: Take a sneak peek into the #RESETCenter. And take a look at the #sfsheriff new online public dashboard- which has real-time insights into admissions, outcomes, and how the program is helping individuals in crisis while allowing law enforcement officers to get… pic.twitter.com/ajqPvmhAER
— SF Sheriff’s Office (@SheriffSF) July 8, 2026
RESET represents the city’s first performance-based contract for services related to public health and homelessness. This doesn’t refer to how RESET impacts the city, but to how much the city pays to Connections Health Solutions, the Arizona-based for-profit contractor operating the program. Connections is receiving a flat monthly rate between $528,339 and $657,018 during 2026, after which the rate will be $555,797, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. But it can make up to an additional 12.5 percent by hitting certain performance metrics, including linking more than 30 percent of detainees to services and keeping the officer drop-off time under eight minutes. Data show it takes approximately five minutes for officers to turn someone over to RESET staff and return to their other duties.
Cops in San Francisco as well as elsewhere in California are more likely to stop Black residents over outstanding warrants compared to white residents. Black residents have significantly more prior arrests and convictions than their white counterparts due to this long history of unequal stops and biased enforcement. They are also more likely than whites to be referred to involuntary psychiatric holds, carceral practices rooted in longstanding clinical-racial bias.
Citywide, Black residents comprise only around 5 percent of the population; white residents, around 37 percent.
San Francisco was redlined in 1937, with immigrant neighborhoods like SoMA graded “hazardous” to justify mortgage denials and economic underinvestment. This legacy continues today. An April civil rights complaint filed by the SOMA West Neighborhood Association alleges that the city treats the area as a “containment zone” for poverty, while protecting the city’s wealthy West Side neighborhoods.
In 2024, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors formally apologized to Black residents for “systemic and structural discrimination” and “targeted acts of violence,” committing to the “rectification and redress of past policies and misdeeds.” Yet earlier in 2026 as the city was getting ready to launch RESET, it cut $57 million from the Department of Public Health budget—gutting harm reduction and HIV services, and vital programs serving Black, Brown and trans communities.
A “jail-alternative” like RESET is yet just another arm of criminalization and surveillance targeting Black residents.
Image via San Francisco Sheriff’s Office/X