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.
South of Market vandalism is the lead signal this month — a sharper below-trend move than any other neighborhood-category pair in San Francisco this briefing, with vandalism also running below trend in Nob Hill and Pacific Heights. Noe Valley other-larceny topped the rankings last month, and that pattern hasn't reversed, but vandalism across multiple neighborhoods is the fresher story here.
Citywide volume is down 23.9% against the prior 12 months — 35,507 incidents against 46,686 the year before. The signal mix is heavily one-directional: 89 below-trend signals and 87 sustained-shift signals against a single spike across 41 neighborhoods. Portola burglary also ran below trend, adding a property-crime category to the list beyond vandalism.
The structural picture is consistent with recent months — broad-based declines, minimal upward pressure, and one outlier spike in Noe Valley other-larceny that bears watching to see whether it develops into a sustained pattern. The vandalism moves across South of Market, Nob Hill, and Pacific Heights are the new element this month; if they persist into July, that becomes a category-level trend rather than a single-month reading.
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 June 2026 briefing.
Is crime in San Francisco down?
Yes — citywide incident volume is 23.9% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 35,507 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 46,686 in the year before — down 11,179 incidents.
Is violent crime in San Francisco down?
Yes — homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 14.7% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 4,276 violent incidents in the past year against 5,010 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 25.8% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 25,735 property incidents in the past year against 34,688 in the prior year.
What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in San Francisco?
- Presidio — 9.0 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Oceanview/Merced/Ingleside — 13.3 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Sunset/Parkside — 13.3 incidents per 1,000 residents
The three safest neighborhoods in San Francisco, ranked by trailing-12-month incidents per 1,000 residents.
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?
Bernal Heights — 48.4% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Bernal Heights logged 680 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,318 the year before.
Which neighborhood in San Francisco saw the biggest crime increase?
Lakeshore — 12.4% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Lakeshore logged 899 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 800 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 | +27% | +4% | +93% | SPIKE | |
| 02 | South of Market | Vandalism | -4% | -21% | -29% | DROP | |
| 03 | Nob Hill | Vandalism | +13% | -33% | -45% | DROP | |
| 04 | Pacific Heights | Vandalism | 0% | -38% | -49% | DROP | |
| 05 | Portola | Burglary | -50% | -50% | -65% | DROP | |
| 06 | Hayes Valley | Vandalism | +650% | -23% | -45% | DROP | |
| 07 | Noe Valley | Theft from Vehicle | +40% | -46% | -61% | DROP | |
| 08 | North Beach | Motor Vehicle Theft | -50% | -38% | -58% | DROP | |
| 09 | Bayview Hunters Point | Vandalism | -16% | -18% | -27% | DROP | |
| 10 | Bernal Heights | Theft from Vehicle | -44% | -55% | -75% | DROP | |
| 11 | West of Twin Peaks | Vandalism | -64% | -26% | -45% | DROP | |
| 12 | Golden Gate Park | Motor Vehicle Theft | — | -29% | -51% | DROP |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Noe Valley
The past 12 months saw 374 incidents — about 93% above the 194 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMSouth of Market
The past 12 months saw 507 incidents — about 29% below the 715 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMNob Hill
The past 12 months saw 169 incidents — about 45% below the 308 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMPacific Heights
The past 12 months saw 95 incidents — about 49% below the 185 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 June 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.