Women Languish at San Francisco’s Jail for Years Without Answers—or Sunlight

For four years, Damena Page has been detained at a San Francisco jail, with no idea of when her criminal case will move forward or why she hasn’t yet gone to trial.

During this time, Page, like almost all detainees held at San Francisco County’s two jails, has been denied access to the outdoors—conditions that have been challenged in two class action lawsuits, including one Page joined. As Page’s imprisonment drags on, she says conditions have only worsened in the jail—a mixed-gender facility in a bustling neighborhood of San Francisco—as lawmakers have packed more people into the facility. 

For years, San Francisco’s public defenders and prisoners have filed formal complaints about the city’s lengthy pretrial detention and jail conditions. Late last year, a federal judge ruled that San Francisco was “recklessly indifferent” in denying prisoners sunlight. After the ruling, people at the men-only jail in the suburbs said the facility removed window coverings to let more sun and fresh air flow through the indoor basketball court. But women and attorneys say no changes were made at the mixed-gender jail, which is part of a separate lawsuit. The mixed-gender facility does not have an outdoor yard. Page and others told The Appeal that the only opportunities to get fresh air come from being taken to a court hearing or the hospital.

As of press time, the average stay in San Francisco’s jails was 324 days. That means that many people spend months or even years without time outside. The Appeal has identified at least four people held pretrial for nine years or longer. Two men who have been there for more than a decade have filed separate lawsuits alleging mistreatment, sexual harassment, and abuse by deputies. 

The city’s jail populations have been increasing, and The Appeal’s reporting has found hundreds of people held for non-violent property crimes. Despite a political push in San Francisco to lock up more people in the name of public safety, people in detention say they are neglected once inside. They describe an existence without sunlight, exercise, adequate healthcare, hygiene, or drinkable water. Some also describe a frequent use of administrative segregation and a culture of retaliation. 

Throughout her pretrial detention, Page has participated in multiple lawsuits, including one in which she described being sexually assaulted by two jail deputies, both of whom still work there. The other lawsuit, which challenges the lack of access to sunlight and fresh air, also claims the facility does not give detainees enough exercise.

A woman—who is not part of the lawsuits—told The Appeal that during her nearly three-month detention, staff only took women to the indoor gym three times. Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tara Moriarty says that staff conducts an “ad-sep [administrative separation] review” every two weeks and takes women to the indoor gym for three hours weekly. The department referred questions about lawsuits to the City Attorney’s office, which declined to comment about sunlight access at the women’s jail.

Sitting under a yellow fluorescent light that she compares to a McDonald’s french fry, Page says life often doesn’t feel real. She struggles with suicidal thoughts. She is now as engrossed in exposing life at the jail as she once was in fighting her criminal case. As the politicized effort to incarcerate more people in San Francisco continues, those trapped inside the city’s jails struggle not to feel hopeless.

“I’m still going to prevail,” Page said. “I’m still going to get out.”

When Page was arrested in October of 2020 (she declined to discuss her criminal case but maintains her innocence), San Francisco’s District Attorney was Chesa Boudin, a self-described progressive who ran on a platform of criminal justice reform as an alternative to mass incarceration. Sensational national news stories about homelessness and drug addiction taking over San Francisco fueled a recall, and, in 2022, voters kicked Boudin out of office early. Local tech billionaires, including PayPal co-founder David Sacks and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, donated millions to the recall effort. 

Mayor London Breed then appointed Brooke Jenkins, a former prosecutor, to take over. Jenkins later ran in a special election on a law-and-order platform, promising more arrests and prosecutions—for violent crime as well as property crime and drug offenses—than her predecessor. Jenkins ultimately won with 53 percent of the vote. She was re-elected last week. 

San Francisco’s wealthiest residents continue to call for more policing and more arrests. In July, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, whose company is the city’s largest private employer, told his 1.1 million Twitter followers that “our SFPD and Sheriffs are the absolute key to a safe and clean San Francisco every day.” He added: “Police must be fully funded. The DA’s office must prosecute to the fullest level of the law.”

San Francisco must REFUND the Police not continue to DEFUND the Police. Our Police need to be empowered now — not this new terrible decision to end pretext stops. Our SFPD and Sheriffs are the absolute key to a safe and clean San Francisco every day. SFPD must be returned to…

— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) July 18, 2024

Amid this panic over property crimes, Jenkins has regularly met with corporate retailers to discuss theft. In October 2023, she met with representatives from major stores, including Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Louis Vuitton, Ross, and Sephora. According to the minutes from a follow-up meeting obtained in a public records request, Jenkins told retailers that “authorities have adopted a firm stance on custody for individuals involved in organized thefts.”

Imprisoned people say they can feel the effects of Jenkins’ policy changes from the inside. The jails have become more crowded each month since her administration took over. A large percentage of detainees are homeless, and hundreds are caged for alleged property crimes. 

More than one-third of the county’s jail population—485 out of the 1,220 people detained on October 29—were unhoused, according to figures obtained through a public records request. Of the total jail population, 292 were held on burglary charges. 

Women have historically comprised a small portion of the jail population, but their ranks are also growing. In April, when there were 90 women in jail, seven women had been charged with organized retail theft—an offense passed into law in California in 2018 that primarily affects corporate chain stores. As of October 29, there were 88 women in jail, nearly double the average women’s jail population in 2021. Of those 88, at least a third were held on burglary or other property crime charges.

By September 2024, the Sheriff’s Office website said the average daily population over the last 30 days in both San Francisco jails had reached 1,208 people. The co-ed jail divides its population into “pods.” Each pod is a circular room with the cells facing each other, and the doors are transparent so everyone can see into each other’s cells. 

Ronaile Joshua Burton was on the floor called the “A Pod,” which houses trans and non-binary people. Authorities arrested Burton in July for allegedly slashing the tires of 17 driverless Waymo cars. The alleged vandalism is among the most high-profile—but far from the only—example of public defacement of driverless vehicles in San Francisco. Prosecutors successfully filed a motion to detain Burton, who uses they/them pronouns, without bail, arguing they constituted a public safety risk. Burton faces 17 felony vandalism charges. They have pleaded not guilty and were released from jail on their own recognizance at the end of September.

In an interview, Burton said they had been working for DoorDash and Uber in a rental car while unhoused. At night, they slept on the frigid ground, a lifestyle they describe as a death sentence. 

“People are struggling,” Burton said. “People need jobs.”

When asked about sunlight access, Burton said their cell doesn’t have a window. But they don’t have complaints about it. They prefer living at the jail to living outside or staying at the homeless shelters. 

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Burton said. 

Another woman who was homeless before her arrest, Kristie Hewitt, was in jail for nearly three months on grand theft charges for allegedly stealing from Macy’s.

Sharonee Hyson has been detained since April 2023 on several charges, including a series of alleged property crimes. It is her second time at the jail, and she has noticed how much more crowded the facility has become since she was last there.

In January 2024, Hyson and Page say a skin infection spread among their pod, but staff ignored their complaints. Eventually, Hyson says the skin on her eye turned green and swelled shut. When staff finally took her to the hospital, she says she was diagnosed with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection. Hyson’s daughter showed The Appeal a photo of a $56,000 bill sent to their home earlier this year from Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health says it does not have a record of any cases of MRSA in the jail in the past year. Asked to comment on the bill, the agency said that “MRSA is not a reportable disease in California, as it is a commonly occurring condition” and that if patients aren’t eligible for aid programs like Medi-Cal, they should try to access the hospital’s financial assistance program.

Shalia Brown, who has been in jail since October of last year after she was arrested in a retail theft sting outside of Walgreens, said she is “behind the door,” or not allowed to interact with anyone besides her cellmates, because the jail also houses one of her co-defendants. (She has pleaded not guilty.) She says the arrangement has effectively cut her off from a weekly support group and access to necessities. 

“We barely get to use the phones, we barely get to take showers, I’m behind the door 24/7,” she said back in April. “They barely come and change out our clothes. They barely change our bed linings. I’ve been here almost eight months, and I still have the same covers as when I first got here.”

San Francisco Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tara Moriarty said, “The Sheriff’s Office’s Classification Unit decides an individual’s housing status when that person is first arrested. Factors taken into consideration: severity of charges, behavioral status, and jail history.”

Moriarity refused The Appeal’s requests to tour the jail. However, the visitor’s room sits on the medical floor and provides a view into the hallway and some of the cells. A third-party company handles jail visits, which can only be booked one day in advance. There are typically just two half-hour windows available to visit someone per week, provided the jail isn’t on lockdown. 

During one visit with a woman incarcerated on organized retail theft charges, staff locked me and two others in the visitor’s room alone for an unusually long time while we waited for them to bring up imprisoned people. We were left alone again after the detainees were taken away. The appointment was scheduled to last thirty minutes but ultimately took two hours. We had no access to bathrooms, a clock, or cell phones. 

The experience provided some corroboration to detainees’ feelings of being forgotten by overwhelmed deputies—or perhaps deliberately ignored. Officers work 12-hour shifts and complain they are understaffed. 

In June, a woman named Arianna Blea said that she waited two hours for a tampon. Blea, who has been in jail since May on assault charges, says she received one only after she bled through her pants and another woman complained on her behalf. She also recalled struggling to get the attention of deputies when a woman in her cell was having difficulty breathing.

In a statement, the sheriff’s spokesperson said, “Most deputies who work in the female housing units are female, and would not allow any woman to be without products. Our feminine products come at no cost to our incarcerated women, unlike other jails.”

On September 3, a 22-year-old woman named Aamonte Hadley was found dead in her cell. Hadley had been detained pretrial for two years for an alleged string of robberies. She unsuccessfully tried to have her case moved to a mental health court, where she could have received counseling instead of jail time. Her death is reportedly still under investigation. According to death-in-custody records obtained by The Appeal, nine other people have died in San Francisco jails since 2020, including three deaths since September of 2023. Hadley was the fourth within a year.

Most imprisoned people interviewed say they pass the time on their jail-issued tablets or walking around and exercising in their pods. Sometimes a cart with books comes by. The men’s jail has college courses, but the female detainees say they aren’t offered anything beyond high school. (The Sheriff’s department says that Stanford teaches women a creative writing course and that “women have access to Five Keys, which provides college-level courses. One challenge we encounter is when two women can’t be in a classroom together.”)

At least three others have been detained pretrial longer than Page. Vincent Bell has been waiting for his trial on a felony murder case in San Francisco for 12 years and has been in administrative segregation the entire time. His bail was set at $2 million. He is currently working on a motion alleging prosecutorial misconduct in his criminal case. He also has filed two civil lawsuits against the city for his treatment in the jail. In one case, a jury awarded him $504,000 in 2022 before an appellate judge overturned the ruling. More recently, he received a $500,000 settlement from the city of San Francisco. 

In his lawsuits, Bell, an amputee, describes allegedly being forced to hop on his only leg after a deputy asked to see his penis in exchange for a razor, along with other abuse. The state has held him at both jails during his detention. He said in an interview that the co-ed facility “is a lot dirtier” and “a lot busier.”

When Page was arrested, she had recently earned a criminal justice degree from San Francisco State University. She was interested in starting a program to teach people how to have good credit, according to letters from a professor in her case file. While in jail, she wrote a school report about the facility’s drinking water and requested bottled water. The tap water in the women’s pods is on top of the toilets and, according to Page and another woman, smells and has white particles floating in it. Arianna Blea says most people stay hydrated with ice chips from the nurse’s office. 

The Sheriff’s department denied The Appeal’s request to observe the water. The spokesperson says the water is checked daily and comes from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, “which provides the entire city of San Francisco and the surrounding areas with some of the highest quality drinking water found in the world.”

In a lawsuit Page filed in 2023, she says sheriff’s deputies raided her cell and found diary entries describing repeated sexual harassment and assault by two male deputies. When she then filed a grievance, staff allegedly removed her from her job in the kitchen rather than investigate the assault allegations. The Sheriff’s Office referred questions about the lawsuit to the City Attorney’s office, which said it denies the allegations in the complaint and wants to have the case dismissed.

This Spring, jail staff placed Page in administrative segregation, a form of solitary confinement, over accusations that she gave an employee the finger and called her a bitch, according to documents Page showed The Appeal. Page says she was there for months. She says the punishment was retaliation for her reputation inside as a “griever”—someone who files complaints about the jail. 

“Once I grieved,” she said, “all hell broke loose.”