Hearing Shows Millions in Taxpayer Dollars Are Spent Promoting What Advocates Call “Copaganda”

SAN FRANCISCO — This afternoon, Supervisor Dean Preston held a first-of-its-kind hearing on the use of taxpayer funds for police and public safety propaganda. The hearing examined the communications offices within the Mayor’s Office and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), including their costs and any policies and procedures to ensure accurate information about public safety matters.

At the hearing, the Government Audit and Oversight Committee heard from SFPD, the Mayor’s Office, and national expert and founder of Civil Rights Corps, Alec Karakatsanis, who spoke about the nature of “copaganda” and its potential harms. The term “copaganda” has been used by advocates and journalists to describe the phenomenon of media manipulation by law enforcement agencies and their promoters to influence public opinion regarding police and policing issues.

“Ultimately, the power of so-called ‘copaganda’ comes from the way it shapes people’s perception of crime, public safety, and potential solutions to societal issues,” said Preston. “Our City departments’ press units should be used to share factual information, not to sensationalize and spin crime data, undermine police oversight, or normalize racial disparities in use of force against people of color within our City.”

The hearing revealed some startling facts, including that the Mayor’s press operation is not guided by any written policies or procedures. The Mayor’s press releases mentioning the SFPD overwhelmingly either advocate for increased police staffing/funding or make claims that SFPD had been reformed.

In addition, SFPD press releases all contain the claim that SFPD is a department “where police reform has worked.” The claim has been contradicted by police reform experts, including Samuel Sinyangwe, founder of Mapping Police Violence and Police Scorecard, who lambasted the SFPD’s framing and noted that “Despite attempts by SFPD to claim the limited reforms they’ve implemented to date are working, San Francisco continues to have among the worst policing outcomes in the nation, with more extreme racial disparities in policing and higher use of force rates than most other major cities.”

In a theme repeated on various issues in the hearing, Preston questioned the Departments not just on what is in their press materials, but what is omitted: “They issue press releases on arrests, but never mention clearance rates. They issue press releases claiming to be a model for reform, yet they never mention racial disparities. They issue press releases on certain crimes like car thefts, but never on wage theft which constitutes over 50% of crime and never on white collar crime. They are making decisions every day that shape the coverage and the public perceptions and fuel demand for more police and more policing regardless of the impacts or result.”

The hearing also uncovered that the media operations are not barebones operations. With over 17 full-time employees dedicated to communications and press work within the Mayor’s Office and SFPD, taxpayers spend nearly $3 million per year on staffing costs alone.

Given various concerns around oversight and accountability in regards to the departments’ media work, Preston urged the departments to adopt clearer policies for their media work, and urged oversight bodies to pay close attention to how taxpayer funds are used on such communications. The hearing comes as the Board of Supervisors is preparing to begin the budget process in which funding for police and alternatives to policing are likely to be at issue.

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