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DA Brooke Jenkins lost more than half of her victim services staff
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DA Brooke Jenkins lost more than half of her victim services staff

On May 26, 2022, 12 days before the eventual recall of then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Brooke Jenkins blasted her former boss for his crime victims.

Refer to a Chronicle of San Francisco column citing five DA employees who said Boudin ignored victims, Jenkins tweeted that Boudin “twirled his pen, without visual contact” during a meeting with the mother of a murdered child: “It is the black voices that he ignores and tries to silence because they do not fuel his agenda,” Jenkins wrote.

In a subsequent tweet, Jenkins referenced the reports from the Chronic which revealed that 20 of 42 employees in the DA’s Victim Services Division had left the office. This, writes Jenkins, reveals Boudin’s lack of commitment to crime victims.

“This is precisely why we need to remember it,” she said. wrote.

Now, more than two years into his term and a day before Jenkins faces a reelection vote, his own victim services division has seen an even larger exodus than under Boudin — and recently been plagued by missteps that critics call major mismanagement.

According to the DA’s office, twenty-eight of the 48 Victim Services Division staff members have left Jenkins’ office since she was sworn in on July 8, 2022, eight more than the number who resigned under Boudin over a shorter period. and which, according to Jenkins, required his recall.

The Victim Services Division had 48 employees, meaning 58 percent of employees left the office under Jenkins’ tenure in 849 days, compared to 48 percent who left Boudin’s office in 869 days. The unit currently has 43 employees, according to the prosecutor’s office.

“Morale is at an all-time low,” said a former member of the unit, citing the high level of turnover. Like other former and current members of the office, they requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisals. “Previously, our focus was on helping victims of violent crime access services and begin their path to recovery. Our unit is no longer here for that.

Instead, the former worker said, the unit has become less structured and advocates and leaders are being “sidelined.”