Six months since San Francisco announced a crackdown on open-air drug markets, authorities have arrested more than 700 people for dealing and nearly 800 for public drug use, the mayor's office announced Tuesday.
San Francisco police Chief Bill Scott said law enforcement has made significant progress in battling the city's drug epidemic, but he also said he knows there's still more work to be done.
"There's been some displacement, there's been some time displacement – things shifting from daytime to nighttime and overnight – and there's been some location displacement," he said.
One big change is the open-air drug markets that once defined UN Plaza are now gone. In their place are skateboarders taking advantage of the newly-installed skate park.
The drug dealing and using that used to happen there is either vanishing or moving to other areas. According to the mayor's office, that's progress.
Figures released Tuesday show police officers and sheriff's deputies have made 556 drug dealing arrests in the last six months in the Tenderloin and South of Market areas.
Police are also arresting open-air drug users, something Jacqui Berlinn with Mother's Against Drug Deaths has been pushing for.
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She said her son is addicted to drugs and shuffles between San Francisco and San Mateo County, which is where he was recently arrested.
"He was released a week later, and when I saw him it was like night and day," she said. "He had a week of sleep. He had good food. His mindset was much better because he hadn't been on street drugs for an entire week. And he was talking about getting into rehab."
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Berlinn believes San Francisco is doing better, but she said the judges in San Mateo County still seem to be willing to take a harder line and compel people to accept either jail or treatment.
In San Francisco, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' office seems to be having a tough time getting the same hard line from judges.
Of the 369 motions requesting someone be detained, only 34 were ordered to be held in jail until trial.
Critics of the crackdown argue it doesn't get to the root problem, saying the real way to battle addiction is treatment, not arrests.
"It's enforcement heavy, and I hate to say it, but that has never worked, and it won't work here," former police commissioner John Hamasaki said.
Scott said his department's plan is for more of the same in the coming year.
"We want to make sure that people understand that we're not going away," he said. "If anything, we will intensify this effort."
