San Francisco to Empty Out Jails:  San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon has received a $2 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to reduce the city's jail population.  Evan Sernoffsky of the Chronicle reports that pressure to replace the city's dilapidated main jail has sparked an effort to reduce sentences and provide programs to curb recidivism to, as Gascon  suggests, provide "a blueprint to take us into the 21st century."  The city by the bay has been working to thin out its jail population for several years with little success.  An October 1 Chronicle story noted that recently-released FBI data indicates that San Francisco ranks #1 in the nation for property crime, and city-data.com reports that major index crimes in the city are higher than 92.7% of other U.S. cities.  In light of this, emptying out the jails seems like a great idea.   

Paroled Sex Offender Murders Utah Co-Ed:  A 21-year-old University of Utah co-ed was murdered Monday by a 37-year-old sex offender on parole, who later killed himself.  Lucia Suarez Sang of Fox News reports that ex-con Melvin Roland had lied to Lauren McCluskey about his age and his criminal record when they began dating, but she broke up with him on October 9, after learning that he was a sex offender on parole.  A few days later she began reporting to University Police that Roland was harassing her.  On the evening of October 22, Roland shot and killed the girl as she was returning to her apartment after a night class.  The University Police Chief told reporters that they had not responded to her multiple calls for help because they did not know where Roland was living.  His parole officer and the state Department of Corrections knew where he lived but were never contacted by the University Police.  There may be a lesson here.  Call the real cops, not the campus police.