San Francisco is Failing Survivors. Here's How to Fix It

PUBLIC COMMENT for the joint October 8, 2026 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the Commission on the Status of Women. 

Respectfully submitted by We Said Enough cofounders Adama Iwu, Christine Pelosi, & Alicia Benavidez 

THE RECKONING THE KEEPS STARTING OVER

We write as sexual violence survivors and advocates with decades of experience between us. Our work together began in October 2017, when Adama wrote a letter calling out the pervasive culture of harassment, discrimination, and abuse in California politics. Co-authored by over 100 women including Christine and Alicia, the letter stated simply: we said enough and we demand better. Even though Alicia was fired simply for signing the letter, we were able to bring visibility, testimony, and change. But we have far more work to do, as the October 8, 2026 hearing demonstrates.

What this hearing has put on the record is specific and damning. San Francisco has an abysmal 14% rape conviction rate.  86% of alleged rapes do not result in a conviction, but leave shattered lives for the survivors and dangerous perpetrators at large free to rape again. We cannot prevent rape if we cannot prosecute it. 

Maddeningly, survivors brave enough to come forward and withstand hours of physical and mental examination by strangers in order to complete a rape kit learned that the San Francisco Police Department buried a decade of rape kit data until a reporter forced it into the open. Survivors were asked to call their assailants and attempt to extract confessions, then left without any guidance when that process put them in the middle of political fallout. 

The district attorney’s office works closely with the police department to determine what warrants can be issued. Even though probable cause causes the stand for a police warrant in a rape case in every other county other than San Francisco apparently probable cause is not enough in San Francisco — the SFPD leadership testified that the SFDA’s office considers those warrants with its own ethical standard of bringing charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The problem is that for public safety you want and rest based on probable cause as quickly as possible, and a full investigation of inculpatory and exculpatory evidence. Under California law an identified perpetrator and a victim who asserts that they did not consent is enough to secure a conviction. But apparently it is not enough to secure a warrant in San Francisco. The case then moves into the inactive file, leaving survivors and the public in limbo — and perpetrators free to harm again. This must change. 

What We Are Asking For

A real response would require five things.

— First, more prevention efforts. Many of our young clients have told us that they are essentially left to fend for themselves. Young people at festivals, parties or even walking through crowded streets complaint of the persistent rape culture in San Francisco. They are the ones left to look out for each other.  Combine that with a lawmakers recent statement that consent is somehow different in the gay community — and a powerful political group pulling that question right now — coupled with a 14% it’s right for rapes. Send the message we have been fighting against for decades that despite the so-called culture of the school of the military of the barr scene of the LGBTQ scene there is one standard for consent and one standard for assault and San Francisco values demand that we uphold it.

— Second, mandatory recurring trauma-informed training* for every officer. Not a one-time certification. A living practice that updates as the science updates. we were pleased to hear SFPD testimony that this training is in the works however, it is months away.

Therefore, while we wait, have an on-call SFPD Sexual Assault Inspector for every shift NOW so that every responding officer can immediately incorporate an expert in receiving the victim’s report. We do this for non-English speakers with translators and could easily do this with experts involved in the very first conversation to make sure that the intake is trauma informed. 

—Third, allow SFPD to issue arrest warrants when they have probable cause that a crime has been committed, and that an identified perpetrator is responsible. Do not bury the case in consultations with the San Francisco District Attorney’s office – which notably was not at the October 8 hearing and therefore unable to tell us what role their vulnerable victims unit played in deciding to charge some case cases and not others. 

— Fourth, the public requires transparent reporting on sexual assault investigation outcomes: clearance rates, reasons for case closure, kit processing times, with independent oversight and the ability to audit. San Francisco buried its data for a decade. That should never have happened.

— Fifth, adequately fund victim-witness advocacy that is genuinely independent from prosecutorial pressure, and trained in the specific dynamics of sexual violence cases. A survivor told this Board that he was asked to call his assailant to extract a confession, and received no guidance about how to protect himself in the political fallout that followed. He should not have had to figure that out alone.

— Sixth, an honest accounting of how racial and economic disparities in the criminal justice system affect both who gets prosecuted and who gets believed. These disparities are real and documented. The answer is prosecutorial standards and oversight that address them directly, not a system that keeps failing the most vulnerable victims.

*Trauma-informed training has to include something more basic than procedure: a clear and shared understanding of what consent actually is. Because part of what is breaking down at the investigative level is not just how officers treat survivors. It is how they understand the underlying facts. Consent to have a drink with someone is not consent to go home with them. Consent to go home with someone is not consent to have sex. Consent to have sex is not consent to everything that follows. It is a continuous act, and it can be withdrawn at any point, for any reason. Until that understanding is embedded in law, in training, and in the courtroom, we will keep having this conversation. Different names. Different cities. Same failure.

To the Survivors Who Didn't Come Forward

We think often about the women and men who experienced exactly what the survivors in those San Francisco rape kit files experienced, and said nothing. Not because nothing happened. But because they did the math. They knew what it costs to come forward, what the odds looked like, that the system was not built for them. They made a rational calculation and moved on. Carrying it.

Some of them are reading this right now — and our hearts go out to them. 

Perpetrators do the math too - a 14% conviction rape is not an effective deterrent.

We have watched reckoning after reckoning arrive with enormous promise and leave with modest results. We survivors are resilient, and we are willing to fight for justice, but it should not take a miracle for criminals to be held accountable. We are not cynical. We are tired. There is a difference. Cynicism gives up. Tired keeps going.

The work is not this hearing. This hearing is the beginning. The work is everything that has to happen after the cameras leave. We respectfully request the Board of Supervisors, SFPD, SFDA and all responsible parties to take up these reforms with the urgency public safety requires.  Thank you for your consideration and prompt attention.