If you remember hearing about the alleged gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a Richmond High School homecoming dance last fall, you might assume that the seven suspects charged in the case (three of them juveniles) are still in custody awaiting trial. And you would be right.

But if you remember the story of the 13-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped around the same time at a Bayview middle school, chances are you’re at least peripherally connected to the case, because that one wasn’t on TV. And if you guessed that the three suspects charged in the crime are still in custody, you’d be wrong.

I’m trying to figure out why three boys, each under the age of 14 and charged with forcible rape and rape in concert, are not in custody. Two were released before undergoing the psychological evaluations requested by Rani Singh, the assistant district attorney on the case.

Lt. Mikail Ali, the San Francisco Police Department veteran in charge of the department’s juvenile division, told me about this case, and why it’s bothering him.

According to the alleged victim, she was raped in the gymnasium at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School shortly before lunchtime. She didn’t tell police about the incident for six months, she said, until repeated taunting by her alleged attackers became intolerable. Over the next several weeks, the boys were arrested, charged and subsequently released to await trial. While in police custody, one confessed, another admitted to being there but not participating and a third denied everything.

I asked Ali if it’s common for minors facing sex-crime charges to be released back into the community.

“In San Francisco, it’s typical,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to be typical in other counties.”

According to Ali, the boys were expelled from the school, and he worries that they’re now in the wind. He said releasing them jeopardizes public safety and sends a harsh message to the victim: law enforcement won’t protect you.

“I have a 12-year-old daughter, so it hits home for me,” he said. “Rape is not a crime where you should be released.”

Lt. Mark Gagan, spokesman for the Richmond Police Department, agreed. Although the juveniles in the homecoming dance case have been charged as adults, Gagan said that in Richmond, even suspects charged as minors with aggravated sex crimes are not released while awaiting trial. “We can’t take a chance,” he said. “Kids are not appropriately supervised by a household…. I’m not saying they need to be punished. It’s about stopping the action until you understand the kid’s issues.”

Scott Swisher, an East Bay deputy D.A., said it’s “atypical” for minors charged with heinous crimes to be released in Alameda County. “When you drop below 14, the possibility of release goes up, but I think the default is going to be the conservative call.”

I asked him if such a release is unusual enough that he would hear about it. He said, “Probably someone would come up muttering under their breath, ‘You’re not going to believe what happened.’”

The San Francisco District Attorney’s office and the Juvenile Probation Department both strongly objected to the release of the boys in San Francisco. Judge Julie Tang and defense attorneys in the case could not be reached for comment, but since the boys aren’t in custody, we can only assume they feel that any threat posed to the community or the alleged victim can be managed through supervision.

San Francisco Chief Probation Officer William Sifferman, who used to work in treatment programs for troubled youth, sees the connection between child welfare, juvenile justice, and public safety. Still, while he wouldn’t comment specifically on the case, he said that many people misunderstand the role of detention in criminal cases involving minors.

“There are adults that are released on bail all the time,” he said. “We’re still working from the presumption of innocence.” Though his office didn’t want the boys released, he said that serious offenders are not released without a plan to “provide some element of security and safety to the community.”

But a mental health service provider who works with probation youth in San Francisco said that too often kids are released at detention hearings without adequate plans for supervision or treatment.

“They’re all generically ordered to home detention,” said the source, who asked not to be named.

“Generic” pre-trial supervision often consists of a curfew and mandatory school attendance, but the source said it’s not unusual for kids on home detention to skip school for weeks or months, “and no one is out looking for them.” Much of the monitoring is contracted out to community based organizations to relieve the strain on overburdened probation officers, and, thanks to budget cuts, electronic supervision is almost non-existent.

Lt. Ali says that releasing juveniles into environments where they may have committed crimes in the past doesn’t cut it, and he’s not buying that the boys are being watched closely enough.

At press time, I hadn’t heard from anyone who could (or would) tell me the precise conditions of supervision and rehabilitation of the boys’ release. Once it was clear that the judge intended to let the boys go, assistant D.A. Singh argued fiercely for intensive supervision that included rehabilitation factors, search conditions, drug-testing, weapons-bans, and, thankfully, a stay-away order for the victim. Some version of those conditions was ordered, but as of this writing, the D.A.’s spokesperson wasn’t able to confirm that the boys are even enrolled in new schools. We won’t know for a while whether they’re guilty or not, but they’re due back in court on June 17.