San Francisco Superior Court data shared Tuesday challenges the success of a widely respected nonprofit that for 50 years has provided services to people awaiting trial outside of jail. 

The court’s analysis came on the eve of a San Francisco Board of Supervisors vote to continue contracting with the nonprofit, the San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project. 

The court on May 28 announced it planned to end its partnership with SF Pretrial, upsetting attorneys, sheriff’s deputies and civil rights advocates alike. 

Instead, the court asked the city’s Adult Probation Department, a law enforcement agency, to develop its own division to connect people accused of crimes to housing, employment and medical treatment.

While SF Pretrial is allocated $8 million a year, moving the work in-house would cost $12.7 million. The decision to shift San Francisco general fund dollars to the probation department is now up to the Board of Supervisors.

San Francisco is one of the few places in California where pre-trial programs are operated by a nonprofit instead of the county’s probation department. SF Pretrial has long been celebrated by politicos and members of law enforcement for keeping its clients out of the justice system. 

But San Francisco Superior Court CEO Brandon Riley wrote in a letter sent to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday evening that prior data indicating the nonprofit’s services are more effective than what probation can offer is “misleading.” 

Differing data

According to the court’s preliminary analysis, pretrial clients are equally likely to be arrested again under the nonprofit’s supervision or the probation department’s supervision. 

The sheriff’s department, which contracts directly with SF Pretrial, often points to the nonprofit’s success compared to a state program that piloted probation-run pretrial services.

In 2025, 94 percent of pretrial diversion clients did not pick up another criminal charge while participating, the sheriff’s department found. 

However, people can be arrested without being charged with a crime. Per the court’s data, only about 70 percent of Pretrial Diversion clients in 2025 were not arrested again. That rate is similar to what the probation pilot reported five years ago, Riley wrote. 

The court’s findings reflect a difference in methodology rather than a discrepancy in results, Pretrial Diversion CEO David Mauroff countered. An arrest does not constitute a criminal offense when people are presumed innocent, he added, and Pretrial Diversion’s methodology aligns with the standard in its field.

In fact, Mauroff told Mission Local that the court’s analysis still confirmed his nonprofit’s success: Clients make their court dates and are “overwhelmingly not arraigned on new charges while under supervision.”

Riley described other contradictions between data within the court’s Tuesday letter and data reported by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office.

For example, the sheriff’s department found that 84 percent of Pretrial Diversion’s clients attended their court dates. The court found that number to be closer to 80 percent. 

Mauroff said the court’s analysis was inconsistent because it relied on case management data that is in flux. Some pretrial clients stop receiving services from the nonprofit before their case is closed. 

Riley also questioned the rigor of the sheriff’s department’s evaluation of Pretrial Diversion, which it has been undertaking since 2025 upon a recommendation from the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst. 

The sheriff’s department reviewed just 22 of the over 8,000 public safety assessments Pretrial Diversion conducted in 2025, Riley wrote. It reviewed only eight client progress reports, when about 1,700 are produced daily. Both sample groups reflect less than one percent of the nonprofits’ total output.

Pretrial Diversion has exceeded the city’s benchmark, Mauroff told Mission Local in response. According to the sheriff’s review, Pretrial Diversion’s assessments are 98 percent accurate. 

Divorce after 50 years

Mauroff said he was surprised to discover in March that the probation department had budgeted for a new program that offers the same services his staff have provided for decades — and for less.

The court’s decision to end its partnership came without explanation, Mauroff said. The “takeover of pretrial supervision has apparently coalesced behind closed doors,” attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a June 8 letter to Rafael Mandelman, president of the Board of Supervisors.

According to a Budget and Legislative Analyst report shared with the supervisors on May 27, court staff had “expressed concerns” to the analysts’ office about Pretrial Diversion’s “financial stability, transparency, management and accuracy of the progress reports for people under pretrial supervision.” 

Such concerns led the court to lose faith in the nonprofit, Riley wrote on Tuesday. After years of attempting to obtain information, “the Court has concluded that it can no longer maintain confidence in the existing contractual relationship.”

Pretrial Diversion “has been responsive to every data request the Court has made and has provided detailed information about its methodologies,” Chief Impact Officer Matt Miller countered. “We stand by our data.” 

Mauroff said his organization had always wanted to keep communication open. “Prior to this process, the  Superior Court’s concerns have not been brought to our attention at this level of urgency.”