5 ms·

SF homicide rate is close to the national average.

Hoyadonis 4y ago
That strikes me as a cherry-picked statistic. San Francisco is one of the most crime-ridden cities in America. > San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-most-crime-ridden-city-us https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-mos...
- threatofrain 4y ago
  The post article is about the homicide of Bob Lee. It's natural to ask whether this is part of a bigger story of SF homicide. People who want to sort major US cities by homicide, assault, or other crimes can look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- maxcan 4y ago
  SF's homicide rate is low, lower in fact than Miami. But, its non-violent crime and property crime numbers are through the roof which makes it feel incredibly unsafe. Miami, on the other hand, actually has a higher homicide rate than SF but because the streets are clean and property crime is much much lower it feels far safer than SF. Also, to be honest, for people reading hacker news, homicides are an incredibly rare black swan event, unlike property crime which you experience almost daily in SF. So, it makes sense for this crowd to have a place higher utility on low property crime than on low homicides. And I'm not judging, I moved to Miami and couldn't be happier with that decision.
  - WanderPanda 4y ago
    It also matters a lot how the parties in the homicide are related, no? If it is people not knowing each other it is much more scary (and worse I would argue) than if it is something like iside circles of organized crime.
    - maxcan 4y ago
      Exactly. I suspect (without much evidence) that most murders in Miami are gang related, so even less likely to affect HN readers whereas in SF it feels more random.
      - NickC25 4y ago
        Dunno if that's true - the murders that happen in SoBe during Black Beach Week aren't usually gang related, it's usually some drunk idiot with a gun and a fancy rental car trying to flex or show off, and someone willing to take the bait. Sad, but that's the reality. The murders that happen in my part of town are usually drug-related, like an OD or, in the case of my neighbor, a drunk and jealous girlfriend with access to a firearm.
        maxcan 4y ago
        SoBe murders don't count towards Miami city's total. I was speaking more about Miami city than MDC.
  - NickC25 4y ago
    Also a Miami resident (of 7 years), I lived in Oakland in 2014 and spent a lot of time in SF. Parts of Miami are definitely cleaner, and some parts of Miami are pretty bad too, if not worse (parts of Wynwood, particularly south of the Wynwood Arcade used to be filled with homeless tents; and that's to say nothing of Liberty City, Little Haiti, etc.. ). However, Miami looks nicer but in many aspects there's some real trash beyond the facade. My building is under 5 years old, in a great (and growing) part of town, yet has had multiple murders in it. I used to live at Icon Bay, which had a literal drug lord living in one of the penthouses until there was a large-scale raid that forced him out. The FBI literally has a unit in my complex because they are here all the time - drug rings, prostitution rings, kidnapping, etc... are all happening right under your nose, but since the perps drive a Benz and walk around in a $250 pair of sneakers, it's less in-your-face (and more socially accepted) than some homeless dude in the Tenderloin shooting up heroin and taking a shit on the sidewalk. One guy in my elevator line was moving weed by the pound on a regular basis like it was nothing, and I had no idea until the property manager pointed out that they had recently been arrested on felony drug charges. Another in my building wears an ankle monitor yet owns a fleet of exotic cars. It's so much harder to tell here than anywhere else I've lived....until you know what to look for. And that's to say nothing of the outrageous amount of scams here, particularly medicare/medicaid fraud. I'd take the homeless guy who shits on the sidewalk any day over the guy who stole millions from medicare and drives around in a Ferrari. At least in SF/Bay Area, you can tell who the trashy folks are, and who the mentally ill people are. In Florida, they are allowed to scam the government, drive around in flashy cars, and better yet - they can buy guns and carry them around, loaded, without a permit.
    - maxcan 4y ago
      This is 100% consistent with my experience in Miami. But, personally, I'd rather have the medicare-fraud-guy than the shits-on-the-street guy in my neighborhood. The former hurts me a little no matter where they live, the latter hurts me a lot but only if they are nearby.
oldgradstudent 4y ago
7.1 per 100,000.[1] This is a large increase in recent years. Just in 2014, the national average was 4.5 per 100,000. And these numbers are several times that of large European cities. Still, this is not as bad as Oakland, with a homicide rate several times that. [1] https://abc7news.com/feature/san-francisco-bay-area-safety-tracker-crime-stats-how-safe-is-my-neighborhood-zip-code-statistics/12442207/ https://abc7news.com/feature/san-francisco-bay-area-safety-t... [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- Hoyadonis 4y ago
  Your second link is to statistics from 2014.
  - oldgradstudent 4y ago
    >> Just in 2014, the national average was 4.5 per 100,000.
- Jochim 4y ago
  > 7.1 per 100,000.[1] This is a large increase in recent years. There were 10 more in 2022 than in 2014[0], which was the low point for homicide rates nationally[1]. The absolute number is fairly flat and per-capita rates are well down on 2000s levels[2]. [0] https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat... [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... [2] https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-California.html https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californ...
x-complexity 4y ago
> SF homicide rate is close to the national average. That is in of itself not alarming. An average city would have an average homicide rate: That's what averages are. It's only alarming if the city has (a) one of the lowest homicide rates nationally, or (b) one of the highest homicide rates nationally. Being average just means that it's the middle of the pack.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Why would (a) be alarming?
  - x-complexity 4y ago
    It can indicate 1 of 2 things: - If it's genuine: There's nothing to worry about. Extreme paranoia about (a) is in this case a false positive. - If it's fraudulent: They're moving the sources of homicide out of their jurisdiction and onto somewhere else. Or they're increasing enforcement, in which case there may be increased false positives as a consequence.
m463 4y ago
Didn't it used to be much worse? I remember in the 90's that oakland and east palo alto were basically murder capitals, and SF wasn't too far off.
- matwood 4y ago
  I visited LA in the early '00s. I was driving somewhere and when my friend gave me directions there was an exit where he basically said 'don't get off there, even just to turn around - that's how bad it is'. To be fair though, I've lived in areas that were next door to top 5 murder/capita rates throughout the 90s-00s and they were all heavy drug and gang areas you knew to avoid. Most of those have also been cleaned up as property values have sky rocketed triggering development.

That strikes me as a cherry-picked statistic. San Francisco is one of the most crime-ridden cities in America. > San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime, which makes the city more dangerous than 98 percent of US cities, both small and large. https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-most-crime-ridden-city-us https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-mos...

threatofrain 4y ago
The post article is about the homicide of Bob Lee. It's natural to ask whether this is part of a bigger story of SF homicide. People who want to sort major US cities by homicide, assault, or other crimes can look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
maxcan 4y ago
SF's homicide rate is low, lower in fact than Miami. But, its non-violent crime and property crime numbers are through the roof which makes it feel incredibly unsafe. Miami, on the other hand, actually has a higher homicide rate than SF but because the streets are clean and property crime is much much lower it feels far safer than SF. Also, to be honest, for people reading hacker news, homicides are an incredibly rare black swan event, unlike property crime which you experience almost daily in SF. So, it makes sense for this crowd to have a place higher utility on low property crime than on low homicides. And I'm not judging, I moved to Miami and couldn't be happier with that decision.
- WanderPanda 4y ago
  It also matters a lot how the parties in the homicide are related, no? If it is people not knowing each other it is much more scary (and worse I would argue) than if it is something like iside circles of organized crime.
  - maxcan 4y ago
    Exactly. I suspect (without much evidence) that most murders in Miami are gang related, so even less likely to affect HN readers whereas in SF it feels more random.
    - NickC25 4y ago
      Dunno if that's true - the murders that happen in SoBe during Black Beach Week aren't usually gang related, it's usually some drunk idiot with a gun and a fancy rental car trying to flex or show off, and someone willing to take the bait. Sad, but that's the reality. The murders that happen in my part of town are usually drug-related, like an OD or, in the case of my neighbor, a drunk and jealous girlfriend with access to a firearm.
      - maxcan 4y ago
        SoBe murders don't count towards Miami city's total. I was speaking more about Miami city than MDC.
- NickC25 4y ago
  Also a Miami resident (of 7 years), I lived in Oakland in 2014 and spent a lot of time in SF. Parts of Miami are definitely cleaner, and some parts of Miami are pretty bad too, if not worse (parts of Wynwood, particularly south of the Wynwood Arcade used to be filled with homeless tents; and that's to say nothing of Liberty City, Little Haiti, etc.. ). However, Miami looks nicer but in many aspects there's some real trash beyond the facade. My building is under 5 years old, in a great (and growing) part of town, yet has had multiple murders in it. I used to live at Icon Bay, which had a literal drug lord living in one of the penthouses until there was a large-scale raid that forced him out. The FBI literally has a unit in my complex because they are here all the time - drug rings, prostitution rings, kidnapping, etc... are all happening right under your nose, but since the perps drive a Benz and walk around in a $250 pair of sneakers, it's less in-your-face (and more socially accepted) than some homeless dude in the Tenderloin shooting up heroin and taking a shit on the sidewalk. One guy in my elevator line was moving weed by the pound on a regular basis like it was nothing, and I had no idea until the property manager pointed out that they had recently been arrested on felony drug charges. Another in my building wears an ankle monitor yet owns a fleet of exotic cars. It's so much harder to tell here than anywhere else I've lived....until you know what to look for. And that's to say nothing of the outrageous amount of scams here, particularly medicare/medicaid fraud. I'd take the homeless guy who shits on the sidewalk any day over the guy who stole millions from medicare and drives around in a Ferrari. At least in SF/Bay Area, you can tell who the trashy folks are, and who the mentally ill people are. In Florida, they are allowed to scam the government, drive around in flashy cars, and better yet - they can buy guns and carry them around, loaded, without a permit.
  - maxcan 4y ago
    This is 100% consistent with my experience in Miami. But, personally, I'd rather have the medicare-fraud-guy than the shits-on-the-street guy in my neighborhood. The former hurts me a little no matter where they live, the latter hurts me a lot but only if they are nearby.

oldgradstudent 4y ago

7.1 per 100,000.[1] This is a large increase in recent years. Just in 2014, the national average was 4.5 per 100,000. And these numbers are several times that of large European cities. Still, this is not as bad as Oakland, with a homicide rate several times that. [1] https://abc7news.com/feature/san-francisco-bay-area-safety-tracker-crime-stats-how-safe-is-my-neighborhood-zip-code-statistics/12442207/ https://abc7news.com/feature/san-francisco-bay-area-safety-t... [2] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

Hoyadonis 4y ago
Your second link is to statistics from 2014.
- oldgradstudent 4y ago
  >> Just in 2014, the national average was 4.5 per 100,000.
Jochim 4y ago
> 7.1 per 100,000.[1] This is a large increase in recent years. There were 10 more in 2022 than in 2014[0], which was the low point for homicide rates nationally[1]. The absolute number is fairly flat and per-capita rates are well down on 2000s levels[2]. [0] https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rate-and-property-crime-rate https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat... [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd... [2] https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-California.html https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-San-Francisco-Californ...

x-complexity 4y ago

> SF homicide rate is close to the national average. That is in of itself not alarming. An average city would have an average homicide rate: That's what averages are. It's only alarming if the city has (a) one of the lowest homicide rates nationally, or (b) one of the highest homicide rates nationally. Being average just means that it's the middle of the pack.

josephcsible 4y ago
Why would (a) be alarming?
- x-complexity 4y ago
  It can indicate 1 of 2 things: - If it's genuine: There's nothing to worry about. Extreme paranoia about (a) is in this case a false positive. - If it's fraudulent: They're moving the sources of homicide out of their jurisdiction and onto somewhere else. Or they're increasing enforcement, in which case there may be increased false positives as a consequence.

m463 4y ago

Didn't it used to be much worse? I remember in the 90's that oakland and east palo alto were basically murder capitals, and SF wasn't too far off.

matwood 4y ago
I visited LA in the early '00s. I was driving somewhere and when my friend gave me directions there was an exit where he basically said 'don't get off there, even just to turn around - that's how bad it is'. To be fair though, I've lived in areas that were next door to top 5 murder/capita rates throughout the 90s-00s and they were all heavy drug and gang areas you knew to avoid. Most of those have also been cleaned up as property values have sky rocketed triggering development.