5 ms·

Non-American resident: what’s going on in SF? Is the crime rate really so high, and racing up? And if so, why?

throwawaysea 5y ago
Yes it is that high. A lot of it is also unreported just because it is everywhere, and people have grown numb to it - especially because the city is not doing anything about it. Public defecation, open drug abuse, littering, car break-ins, burglaries of private homes, looting of stores, and so on are rampant. I would say crime that results in physical bodily harm is not as pronounced but other crimes are rampant. In my opinion it is the result of public policies that view criminals as victims and aims to be soft on them, viewing that as a path to reduced recidivism. However in practice it is simply inducing a significant increase in crime because the deterrents to crime (arrests, charges, fines, jail time) are removed. I wrote more about this in a different discussion if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27726777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27726777
sdenton4 5y ago
No it's not. https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crime-dashboard https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim... Pretty random fluctuations across crime categories year over year (5% up for robbery, vehicle theft, 11% down for larceny/theft, which is what this articles about...). For reference, it looks like a few years ago SF was 9th in the us for robbery, at 34 per 10k residents. The current sf stats come to about 40 per 10k residents. https://www.safety.com/home-security/cities-with-high-rates-of-robberies/ https://www.safety.com/home-security/cities-with-high-rates-...
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  That's because police don't even bother to report these crimes anymore. See: the article posted recently with the video of shoplifters straight up clearing out an entire Walgreens and no police in sight.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    The police are never around when crimes are going on, though: showing up later is what always happens... Good forbid one should bring stats to an pity party though.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Nice snark, I guess, but it totally misses the point, which is that if the narrative is right, you can't trust those statistics. So trying to use the statistics to disprove the narrative is completely not going to work. You need to have objectively verifiable statistics in order to disprove the narrative (or at least something better than "reported to police").
      - sdenton4 5y ago
        So your position is unfalsifiable. Have fun with that. Can you prove that the SF stats are of worse quality than any other city? If not, they're still of use for comparison. Can you prove that the reporting percentage has gotten worse over time? If not, they're still useful for year over year.
        AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Can we prove that the reporting percentage has gotten worse over time? No, but we can make a plausible argument that a change in policy to not prosecute X will result in people not bothering to report X. We also have anecdotal information that places like Targets and Walgreens are facing increased losses. We now have multiple anecdotes supporting the plausible scenario. That's not unfalsifiable, it's just unfalsifiable by using the statistics that are plausibly wrong. You could think about trying to falsify it by, for example, surveying businesses about their rate of losses due to shoplifting. To my knowledge, we don't have that data. What we do have is reason to question the statistics you're quoting.
        sdenton4 5y ago
BitwiseFool 5y ago
Here is a really broad, and hopefully neutral, take on the subject. There is now a popular movement in America that believes the Justice System is too harsh, especially on minor crimes. This is also coupled with the perception that police officers are prone to using force when it is unnecessary, and, that they use deadly force way too often and haphazardly. There is also a huge racial component to all of this, which I'm sure you're probably aware of and I don't want to wade into. The result is that a lot of cities have begun to avoid sending police offers for petty theft and other reported misdemeanors. This is not to say the police don't show up at all, but when they do its so that the victims can file a police report. It's usually not to stop the theft or vandalism in-progress. Criminals have gotten wise to this, and often steal brazenly knowing that the police won't put serious effort into apprehending them as long as each theft is relatively minor. Many homeless people defecate and urinate freely in public because the police have simply stopped issuing citations for such behavior. The cumulative effect is that many areas feel lawless and that only enables more lawbreaking to take place.
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  I'd personally say "are lawless" rather than "feel lawless."
- lokar 5y ago
  Re: using the sidewalk as a toilet. There is often no public restroom available for the homeless to use. They have no choice.
  - pas 5y ago
    Do they go to find a bush/tree at least?
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      No, they don't.
- adjkant 5y ago
  I think this is a pretty decent summary, but I do genuinely have one factual question here: > Many homeless people defecate and urinate freely in public because the police have simply stopped issuing citations for such behavior. What was a citation doing previously on this given that homeless people would simply ignore a citation? Has this actually increased in a way we can measure? I haven't been in SF since the pandemic, but none of my friends have complained about this in the area, and it seems to me like this assessment appears to be very much split on agreement by political lines. I'm also skeptical of this because I've seen claims of this in my current city (NYC) yet have not seen and general increase save one neighborhood, Times Square. From what I gather, the business district of SF (SOMA) might also just be getting a slight increase here, expanding out from the tenderloin which has always had this as far as the past decade is concerned. Is there anything more widespread than that? It seems like that simply was due to the lack of people actually working in both areas now due to the pandemic, not any police enforcement.
mcguire 5y ago
The "data" I found (https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=France&city1=Paris&country2=United+States&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Fra...) seems to suggest it's similar to Paris and London, but I can't find hard numbers like: Sam Francisco Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): Violent 6.91, property 56.73, total 63.64. (https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime)
- daxuak 5y ago
  The problem here might be that property crimes in SF is being under-reported.
  - xref 5y ago
    Under-reported in a way that couldn’t also be happening in Paris or London?
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      Crimes are less likely to be reported in places where reporting them doesn't accomplish anything useful.
      - xref 5y ago
        Same question, we know this cannot be happening in London and Paris?
ww520 5y ago
It's high in reality but the politicians deliberately re-classified a large class of crimes to be misdemeanor to skew the statistics, so they can say - look the violent crime stat is down under my watch.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
I know it's just an anecdote but, a good friend of mine went to SF about a year ago with four other friends. Much of their stuff (macbooks etc) got stolen from their car on their first day. Of course silly to leave things in the car. Still, these are all guys from Europe who've travelled every continent extensively and never experienced something like this. In fact none of us can remember a single break-in of any kind into our cars or homes in our entire lives in any country. It really just is an anecdote, I've never set foot in SF myself. But as a non-American who was surprised by the narrative around this city home to some of the world's ultra rich, the anecdote easily fit in.
bassman9000 5y ago
https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1411357034797101058?s=20 https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/14113570347971010...
GaryTang 5y ago
High taxes and burdensome regulations. They lower the number of available jobs and lower the ability for individuals to start a business.

Yes it is that high. A lot of it is also unreported just because it is everywhere, and people have grown numb to it - especially because the city is not doing anything about it. Public defecation, open drug abuse, littering, car break-ins, burglaries of private homes, looting of stores, and so on are rampant. I would say crime that results in physical bodily harm is not as pronounced but other crimes are rampant. In my opinion it is the result of public policies that view criminals as victims and aims to be soft on them, viewing that as a path to reduced recidivism. However in practice it is simply inducing a significant increase in crime because the deterrents to crime (arrests, charges, fines, jail time) are removed. I wrote more about this in a different discussion if you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27726777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27726777

sdenton4 5y ago

No it's not. https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crime-dashboard https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-data/crim... Pretty random fluctuations across crime categories year over year (5% up for robbery, vehicle theft, 11% down for larceny/theft, which is what this articles about...). For reference, it looks like a few years ago SF was 9th in the us for robbery, at 34 per 10k residents. The current sf stats come to about 40 per 10k residents. https://www.safety.com/home-security/cities-with-high-rates-of-robberies/ https://www.safety.com/home-security/cities-with-high-rates-...

b9a2cab5 5y ago
That's because police don't even bother to report these crimes anymore. See: the article posted recently with the video of shoplifters straight up clearing out an entire Walgreens and no police in sight.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  The police are never around when crimes are going on, though: showing up later is what always happens... Good forbid one should bring stats to an pity party though.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Nice snark, I guess, but it totally misses the point, which is that if the narrative is right, you can't trust those statistics. So trying to use the statistics to disprove the narrative is completely not going to work. You need to have objectively verifiable statistics in order to disprove the narrative (or at least something better than "reported to police").
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      So your position is unfalsifiable. Have fun with that. Can you prove that the SF stats are of worse quality than any other city? If not, they're still of use for comparison. Can you prove that the reporting percentage has gotten worse over time? If not, they're still useful for year over year.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Can we prove that the reporting percentage has gotten worse over time? No, but we can make a plausible argument that a change in policy to not prosecute X will result in people not bothering to report X. We also have anecdotal information that places like Targets and Walgreens are facing increased losses. We now have multiple anecdotes supporting the plausible scenario. That's not unfalsifiable, it's just unfalsifiable by using the statistics that are plausibly wrong. You could think about trying to falsify it by, for example, surveying businesses about their rate of losses due to shoplifting. To my knowledge, we don't have that data. What we do have is reason to question the statistics you're quoting.
        sdenton4 5y ago

BitwiseFool 5y ago

Here is a really broad, and hopefully neutral, take on the subject. There is now a popular movement in America that believes the Justice System is too harsh, especially on minor crimes. This is also coupled with the perception that police officers are prone to using force when it is unnecessary, and, that they use deadly force way too often and haphazardly. There is also a huge racial component to all of this, which I'm sure you're probably aware of and I don't want to wade into. The result is that a lot of cities have begun to avoid sending police offers for petty theft and other reported misdemeanors. This is not to say the police don't show up at all, but when they do its so that the victims can file a police report. It's usually not to stop the theft or vandalism in-progress. Criminals have gotten wise to this, and often steal brazenly knowing that the police won't put serious effort into apprehending them as long as each theft is relatively minor. Many homeless people defecate and urinate freely in public because the police have simply stopped issuing citations for such behavior. The cumulative effect is that many areas feel lawless and that only enables more lawbreaking to take place.

nathanaldensr 5y ago
I'd personally say "are lawless" rather than "feel lawless."
lokar 5y ago
Re: using the sidewalk as a toilet. There is often no public restroom available for the homeless to use. They have no choice.
- pas 5y ago
  Do they go to find a bush/tree at least?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    No, they don't.
adjkant 5y ago
I think this is a pretty decent summary, but I do genuinely have one factual question here: > Many homeless people defecate and urinate freely in public because the police have simply stopped issuing citations for such behavior. What was a citation doing previously on this given that homeless people would simply ignore a citation? Has this actually increased in a way we can measure? I haven't been in SF since the pandemic, but none of my friends have complained about this in the area, and it seems to me like this assessment appears to be very much split on agreement by political lines. I'm also skeptical of this because I've seen claims of this in my current city (NYC) yet have not seen and general increase save one neighborhood, Times Square. From what I gather, the business district of SF (SOMA) might also just be getting a slight increase here, expanding out from the tenderloin which has always had this as far as the past decade is concerned. Is there anything more widespread than that? It seems like that simply was due to the lack of people actually working in both areas now due to the pandemic, not any police enforcement.

mcguire 5y ago

The "data" I found (https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=France&city1=Paris&country2=United+States&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Fra...) seems to suggest it's similar to Paris and London, but I can't find hard numbers like: Sam Francisco Crime Rate (per 1,000 residents): Violent 6.91, property 56.73, total 63.64. (https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime)

daxuak 5y ago
The problem here might be that property crimes in SF is being under-reported.
- xref 5y ago
  Under-reported in a way that couldn’t also be happening in Paris or London?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Crimes are less likely to be reported in places where reporting them doesn't accomplish anything useful.
    - xref 5y ago
      Same question, we know this cannot be happening in London and Paris?

ww520 5y ago

It's high in reality but the politicians deliberately re-classified a large class of crimes to be misdemeanor to skew the statistics, so they can say - look the violent crime stat is down under my watch.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

I know it's just an anecdote but, a good friend of mine went to SF about a year ago with four other friends. Much of their stuff (macbooks etc) got stolen from their car on their first day. Of course silly to leave things in the car. Still, these are all guys from Europe who've travelled every continent extensively and never experienced something like this. In fact none of us can remember a single break-in of any kind into our cars or homes in our entire lives in any country. It really just is an anecdote, I've never set foot in SF myself. But as a non-American who was surprised by the narrative around this city home to some of the world's ultra rich, the anecdote easily fit in.

bassman9000 5y ago

https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1411357034797101058?s=20 https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/14113570347971010...

GaryTang 5y ago

High taxes and burdensome regulations. They lower the number of available jobs and lower the ability for individuals to start a business.