San Francisco Crime Rate Trends
Data sourced from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Open Data portal and analyzed by Public Analyst.ai: 41 neighborhoods, 10 incident categories, twelve months of trailing comparison. Browse the rankings, scan the multi-year trends, or open a neighborhood-level breakdown.
Lincoln Park burglary ended a streak this month, the freshest signal in a briefing otherwise dominated by sustained declines. Noe Valley other-larceny has been the persistent backdrop — last month's citywide lead category — but the new story is the streak break in Lincoln Park, joined by a sexual assault streak break in Presidio Heights. Two streak breaks in the top five is unusual when the broader mix is this quiet.
Citywide volume is down 24.5% against the prior 12 months — 36,811 incidents against 48,778 in the year before. The signal mix is overwhelmingly tilted toward decline: 94 sustained-shift signals and 90 below-trend signals, plus 15 zero-event signals, against a single fresh spike across 41 neighborhoods. South of Market vandalism and Portola burglary both ran below trend, reinforcing the broad pattern.
The two streak breaks are the main things to watch heading into May. They don't reverse the citywide direction — the multi-year decline holds — but they represent the first fresh upward moves in those neighborhoods in several months. If either category holds above trend next month, it becomes a sustained signal rather than a one-month break.
San Francisco Crime Frequently Asked Questions
Trailing 12 months vs the prior 12 months, computed from the same NIBRS-aligned categories used everywhere else on the page. Updated each April 2026 briefing.
Is crime in San Francisco down?
Yes — citywide incident volume is 24.5% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 36,811 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 48,778 in the year before — down 11,967 incidents.
Is violent crime in San Francisco down?
Yes — homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 20.0% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 4,252 violent incidents in the past year against 5,318 in the prior year. See the by-category section below for the per-bucket breakdown.
Is property crime in San Francisco down?
Yes — burglary, theft from vehicle, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson are down 26.0% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 26,810 property incidents in the past year against 36,231 in the prior year.
What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in San Francisco?
Presidio, Oceanview/Merced/Ingleside, and Sunset/Parkside have the lowest crime rates in San Francisco — 7.2, 13.3, and 14.8 incidents per 1,000 residents over the trailing 12 months.
Computed as NIBRS-aligned trailing-12-month incident totals divided by the latest ACS 5-year residential population, expressed per 1,000 residents. Restricted to neighborhoods with at least 1,000 residents so park-only and industrial geographies — where visitor populations are not reflected in the residential denominator — are excluded.
Which neighborhood in San Francisco saw the biggest crime drop?
Japantown — 46.1% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Japantown logged 188 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 349 the year before.
Which neighborhood in San Francisco saw the biggest crime increase?
Lakeshore — 11.5% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Lakeshore logged 882 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 791 the year before.
The denominators behind the numbers
Peninsula city; sharp microclimate and topography breaks (hills, parks, freeways) define neighborhood boundaries more than political ones.
ACS 2024 5-year estimates, county-level (San Francisco County).
City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.
High pedestrian + transit exposure shifts crime-rate denominators away from “per resident” toward “per person-hour outdoors.”
SFPD reclassified some larceny coding in 2024; that window is noted on the methodology page so it doesn’t skew baselines.
Every neighborhood, color-coded
Largest moves this month
| # | Neighborhood | Category | MoM | YoY 12mo | vs baseline | 90-day trend | Signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Noe Valley | Other Larceny | -13% | +2% | +94% | SPIKE | |
| 02 | Lincoln Park | Burglary | — | — | — | STREAK BREAK | |
| 03 | Presidio Heights | Sexual Assault | — | — | — | STREAK BREAK | |
| 04 | South of Market | Vandalism | -23% | -20% | -28% | DROP | |
| 05 | Portola | Burglary | -25% | -56% | -65% | DROP | |
| 06 | Noe Valley | Theft from Vehicle | -33% | -50% | -62% | DROP | |
| 07 | Pacific Heights | Vandalism | -43% | -30% | -44% | DROP | |
| 08 | Sunset/Parkside | Vandalism | +44% | -18% | -34% | DROP | |
| 09 | Bernal Heights | Theft from Vehicle | -44% | -55% | -73% | DROP | |
| 10 | Hayes Valley | Vandalism | +64% | -18% | -40% | DROP | |
| 11 | West of Twin Peaks | Vandalism | +175% | -31% | -46% | DROP | |
| 12 | North Beach | Motor Vehicle Theft | +150% | -37% | -55% | DROP |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Noe Valley
The past 12 months saw 368 incidents — about 94% above the 190 average from prior years.
Read briefing →STREAK BREAK · BURGLARYLincoln Park
First incident since September 2023 — a 3-year gap ended this month.
Read briefing →STREAK BREAK · SEXUAL ASSAULTPresidio Heights
First incident since January 2024 — a 2-year gap ended this month.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMSouth of Market
The past 12 months saw 515 incidents — about 28% below the 717 average from prior years.
Read briefing →Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents citywide across the full analysis window. Useful for routine context — shopping-strip thefts vs. late-night assaults read very differently when you can see when each typically happens.
All 41 San Francisco neighborhoods
Crime rate trends and April 2026 briefings for every tracked neighborhood. Alphabetical.
- Bayview Hunters Point crime rate
- Bernal Heights crime rate
- Castro/Upper Market crime rate
- Chinatown crime rate
- Excelsior crime rate
- Financial District/South Beach crime rate
- Glen Park crime rate
- Golden Gate Park crime rate
- Haight Ashbury crime rate
- Hayes Valley crime rate
- Inner Richmond crime rate
- Inner Sunset crime rate
- Japantown crime rate
- Lakeshore crime rate
- Lincoln Park crime rate
- Lone Mountain/USF crime rate
- Marina crime rate
- McLaren Park crime rate
- Mission crime rate
- Mission Bay crime rate
- Nob Hill crime rate
- Noe Valley crime rate
- North Beach crime rate
- Oceanview/Merced/Ingleside crime rate
- Outer Mission crime rate
- Outer Richmond crime rate
- Pacific Heights crime rate
- Portola crime rate
- Potrero Hill crime rate
- Presidio crime rate
- Presidio Heights crime rate
- Russian Hill crime rate
- Seacliff crime rate
- South of Market crime rate
- Sunset/Parkside crime rate
- Tenderloin crime rate
- Treasure Island crime rate
- Twin Peaks crime rate
- Visitacion Valley crime rate
- West of Twin Peaks crime rate
- Western Addition crime rate
How We Calculate San Francisco Crime Trends
Open about how we define spikes, what we exclude as noise, where the data comes from, and how often the model is wrong.