“There are many cities across the country that are seeing record declines in homicides. This isn’t unique to San Francisco. I think that’s what happens when order returns to life,” he told KQED. “People, especially young men, are busy during the day with work and school, people are out in the streets, the streets are not deserted.”
The number of cases reported to San Francisco police that resulted in an arrest has increased since 2021, when the arrest rate was about 5%. The arrest rate has hovered around 8.5% this year, the highest since 2015, according to data from the district attorney’s office.
It’s unclear what the decline in crime means in the long term.
“This could be the beginning of a downturn that will continue, but we may just be seeing a slight change in the ups and downs of crime,” said Heather Harris, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.
Accuracy of preliminary crime data Recently, it has come under scrutiny. In Oakland, San Francisco Chronicle It turns out the city was grossly under-reporting crime. And it has been that way for years. We found that the San Francisco data is more accurate, but most years the numbers go up slightly once finalized.
“The clearest thing I can really say is [gun violence] “We expect the number of cases to decline in 2024, but it’s not clear that will continue over the next six months of 2024,” Harris said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but it’s always a mistake to rely too heavily on one data point, so it should be interpreted with caution.”
