San Francisco Crime Is Down Significantly, But It’s Not Clear Trend Will Last

Despite pervasive “doom loop” chatter around San Francisco’s struggling downtown, car break-ins and a public drug crisis, new police data shows crime in the city was considerably down in the first half of 2024. However, whether that foreshadows a prolonged trend or is just the result of a few good months is still unknown.

New year-to-date figures from the San Francisco Police Department show double-digit percentage decreases in reports of both violent and property crime. Overall, the city has reported around 9,000 fewer crimes through mid-July this year than during the same period last year, representing a 32% decrease, Chief William Scott told a Wednesday evening meeting of the Police Commission.

“The property crimes … are really the reason that we have such a significant drop in overall crime,” he said during the meeting.

Property crimes are down 34% from last year. The largest decrease has been in personal property theft, which is 41% lower. Burglaries are also down 18%.

Violent crime is down, though not as sharply, by 11%. Preliminary data shows one of the biggest decreases was among gun-related crimes — gun violence dropped nearly 30%, with a total of 86 fatal and non-fatal shooting victims through mid-July.

Gun violence had spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching more than 120 victims by this time of year in both 2023 and 2021. This year’s total is still 20, higher than both 2019 and 2020.

Homicides, which also increased in the years after the pandemic began, appear to be down 38% from last year. There were 17 killings through the end of June, the lowest for this period since before 2015, the earliest data that could be found online.

Keith Humphreys, a professor and member of Stanford’s Council on Criminal Justice, said the increase in murders during the pandemic was likely linked to the public health crisis, so the declining numbers go hand in hand with the recovery.

“There are many cities around the U.S. that are having record drops in murder — that’s not specific to San Francisco. I think that is what happens when structure to life returns,” he told KQED. “People, particularly young males, are more occupied during the day in work or in school, people are out on the streets, the streets aren’t deserted.”

Data from the district attorney’s office shows that the number of incidents reported to SFPD that result in an arrest has increased since 2021, when the rate was around 5%. This year’s arrest rate has hovered around 8.5% — the highest since 2015.

What the decrease in crime could mean in the long term remains unclear.

“We could be seeing the start of a downturn that will persist, but we could also just be seeing a little blip in the vicissitudes of crime,” said Heather Harris, a fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

The accuracy of preliminary crime data has also been called into question recently. In Oakland, an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle showed that the city was significantly underreporting its crime numbers and has been for years. San Francisco’s data was found to be more accurate, though most years, the numbers do rise slightly once finalized.

“The clearest thing that I can really say is that it’s encouraging that it looks like the number of [gun violence] incidents is coming down in 2024, but it’s not clear that that’s going to be the case for the next six months of 2024,” Harris said. “We have to wait and see what happens … but attributing too much to one data point is always a mistake, so you should interpret it cautiously.”