City workers try to keep San Francisco's streets clean.
San Francisco is the
nation's leader in property crime. Burglary, larceny, shoplifting, and vandalism are included under this ugly umbrella. The rate of car break-ins is particularly striking: in 2017 over
30,000 reports were filed, and the
current average is 51 per day. Other low-level offenses, including drug dealing, street harassment, encampments, indecent exposure, public intoxication, simple assault, and disorderly conduct are also rampant.
Many in law enforcement blame the crime wave on Proposition 47, which in 2014 downgraded possession of illegal narcotics for personal use and theft of anything under $950 in value from felonies to misdemeanors. Anti-incarceration advocates disagree with that argument, but theft is indisputably booming, and narcotics activity is exploding on sidewalks, parks, and playgrounds. When compounded with other troubles for which the city is now infamous (human feces, filth, and homelessness, which is up 17 percent since 2017), San Franciscans find themselves surrounded by squalor and disorder.
"A lot of people are ready to leave because the crimes are causing depression," says Susan Dyer Reynolds, editor-in-chief of the
Marina Times, an independent community newspaper. "
Navigation centers" for the homeless,
says Reynolds, "are not sober facilities, and people steal and break into cars to feed their habits. Crime will go up. We know this."
Comment: See also: