REDWOOD CITY — San Mateo County has been spending a lot more money to prosecute suspected criminals than to defend them, according to a San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report.

To even the playing field, the grand jury is recommending that the county thoroughly review the program’s effectiveness with an eye toward bolstering its budget or consider ditching it in favor of creating a public defender’s office.

Unlike most other counties in the Bay Area and the country, San Mateo County doesn’t have a traditional public defender’s office of staff attorneys to go up against prosecutors. Instead, it contracts with the San Mateo County Bar Association to provide criminal defense for indigent clients through 114 attorneys who work as independent contractors.

But without dedicated public funding, the grand jury report says, the private defender program has languished under tight budgets over the past decade, bringing into question the quality of legal representation low-income people get.

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