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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

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You're objectively wrong.

> San Francisco recorded 56 homicides each in 2022 and 2021, up over 36% from 2019, when there were 41 homicides, according to police department data. Despite the increase, the number of homicides in San Francisco is well below that of other cities of a similar size, data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association shows.

> Indianapolis, for example, witnessed 271 homicides in 2021 and 226 in 2022. Jacksonville, Florida, meanwhile, saw 129 homicides in 2021 and 154 in 2022, while 204 homicides took place in Columbus, Ohio, in 2021 and 140 in 2022.

> Violent crimes in San Francisco, including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, reached a high in 2013 with 7,164 violent crimes, according to California Department of Justice data. But they have tapered off significantly in the past couple of years. San Francisco now falls in the lower middle of the pack when compared with several cities of a similar population, according to data from the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association.

San Francisco is just "average", and possibly "below average", for violent crime. Claiming it is one of the most violent cities in the country is just hysterics with no basis in reality.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/us/san-francisco-crime-bob-le...

It's quite high for overall crime though.

Crime Rate(per 1,000 residents):

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/fl/jacksonville/crime - 33.76

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/in/indianapolis/crime - 42.52

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/san-francisco/crime - 54.33

as a reference point:

https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mi/detroit/crime - 59.01

"Overall crime" and "violent crime" are not the same thing. No one is arguing against there being a lot of property crime.

I was surprised to see in the article that SF has only had 12 murders so far this year. My city is less than 1/3 the size and has 14 murders so far, and it doesn’t feel like a lawless hell hole to me. Every murder is tragic, but almost all of them involve parties known to each other.

> Claiming it is one of the most violent cities in the country

To be fair the phrasing "one of the most XXX" has a LOT of wiggle room at best, and is technically a tautology at worst.

Thanks for the numbers. On the street except for murder cops won’t even take your report anymore. The numbers reflect nothing in SF and residents know it.

>The numbers reflect nothing in SF and residents know it.

Former, recent resident with a penchant for late-night dancing (read: frequently ended up in "seedy" areas in the middle of the night) chiming in. Never felt as though I was in danger while out and about, day or night, and never felt that SF was a more violent city than others.

But thank you for speaking for everyone.

When you live in a violent area - you usually don't "feel" it until the night you get whacked.

Source: been there, got whacked.

If you're dead how are you posting?

The verb can mean either you get rubbed off - or just hit really heard.

So what you're saying is your feelings don't care about the facts?

"Even when I'm factually wrong, I'm right"

Isn't it this way in almost every major urban US area? I was in St. Louis for a conference and got robbed, after I reported it to police and told them I had the current location of the suspects because they stole my phone and location services was still on, the police laughed at me and told me "what do you want us to do, go bust some doors down?", then instructed me to file a report but explained it might not be worth it to even bother doing so because there was almost a 0% chance of my stolen goods being returned.

Current resident. I walked 1 mile home late last night, through two neighborhoods that people call sketchy. The only thing that felt unsafe was the cars.

"On the street except for murder cops won’t even take your report anymore."

Completely false and you only have to look at the police crime dashboard to know that. I'm a resident and can say that the numbers track pretty closely with my experience here anyway.

I was just laughing about this position the other day: if the the stats confirm your position they’re accurate and can’t be ignored. If they’re not then the bookkeeping is wrong. A win/win situation!

Did you miss the fact that we had two entire elections to install a new reactionary pro-cop DA, specifically so that people who use this excuse to make things up about SF crime could can it?

Police work stoppages should be fireable offenses.

> objectively one of the most violent cities in the country

The news article (and many comments in this thread) says the exact opposite:

> San Francisco is home to much in the way of visible public misery, unnerving street behavior and overt drug-use. Its property crime rate has long been high, and the police clearance rate for property crimes has long been minimal. But the city’s violent crime rate is at a near-historic low and is lower than that in most mid-to-large-sized cities.

Property crime is sky-high, sure. Violent crime is a totally different category. It is important not to mix them up.

2021 homicide rate across comparable cities:

St Louis 66.5 Detroit 47.9 Phila 34.8 Milwaukee 33.9 ... Austin 8.2 SF 6.9 ... NY 5.5

https://abc7news.com/amp/san-francisco-crime-rate-bob-lee-sf...

We can talk about other types of violent crime (maybe the other ones are higher, I haven't looked into them recently) but let's at least stick to the well-defined categories and since you said it's "objectively one of the most violent" then we should be able to back that up with stats in each category: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

High Property Crime is not the same as lots of violent crime. SF does seem to have a problem with property crimes - but not violent ones.

Perhaps in SF the victims of violent crime are in a higher social bracket than in other cities?

Aka more rich people are the target in SF compared to other cities where mostly lower class people are effected?

That's exactly what it is. White collar upper middle class types are more exposed to it relatively (not necessarily absolutely) in SF than in other cities. Even if the actual odds of being victim of a violent crime are lower overall they're still higher per crime and people still feel more exposed because the market shares of the various things that make up the crime pie are very different in SF than in other cities.

In Chicago, Baltimore, all those other cities techies turn up their nose at for their crime rates you might get shot in a convenience store robbery, you might get knifed by a mugger but the overwhelming majority of the violence is drug dealers and users and distributors settling scores amongst themselves (because they can't use the courts to do it for them).

Contrast with SF where the overall amount (overall or per capita) of violent crime is lower but it is much, much more concentrated toward the randomly targeted crime affecting people not already involved in activity beyond the law types of creimes meaning that your odds of getting shot in a convenience store robbery or knifed by a mugger are higher in SF than a city of equivalent violent crime rates per capita that has a more normal looking crime pie chart.

What words _would_ you use to describe a city with fewer homicides per capita than almost all other major US cities?

Might want to look at some relevant data; https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-crime-rate-bob-lee-sf-vio... has a handy chart halfway down, if you're not interested in reading.

I got a page not found error going to that link.

Also the parent said "violent crime" not just homicides. In addition it is known that homicides among the homeless, of which SF is known to have many, are underreported.

Plus there is plenty of property crime as well.

>I got a page not found error going to that link.

In that case, try this[0] one that another HNer posted. It even allows you to sort by type of crime.

> In addition it is known that homicides among the homeless, of which SF is known to have many, are underreported.

Uhhh...Have you ever been around a decomposing corpse? They're not so easy to hide or dispose of, and the population you're talking about isn't likely to have the resources to do so.

As such, you might want to check the "source" of information you're relying on for that assertion. That said, I could be completely wrong and SF's homeless community has a bustling trade in disposing of bodies. But that seems pretty unlikely, don't you think?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Edit: Added the missing link.

Where is that known? Known by who? Do you have any actual evidence of this claim?

Based on what?

It's murder rate is well below the median among cities larger than 200k.

Which numbers are you using for that?

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