San Francisco · August 2026 briefing

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.

Read methodology→UPDATED · AS OF 2026-08

179

tracked signals this month — across spikes, drops, sustained shifts, rare events.

-20.1%

overall city incident volume vs. trailing 12-month avg.

neighborhoods covered. Each gets its own page.

incident categories tracked, NIBRS-aligned.

The freshest signal this August is a rare aggravated assault cluster in Lincoln Park, a low-volume neighborhood where a single incident registers as a statistical outlier. Lakeshore other-larceny has been the persistent backdrop, the category that led last month, and it still places at the top of the underlying rankings with a fresh spike this period. The headline this briefing, though, is the Lincoln Park rare-event signal, which is the first time it has topped the rankings.

Citywide volume is down 20.1% against the prior 12 months, 35,122 incidents against 43,943 in the year before. The mix is heavily skewed toward declines: 92 below-trend signals and 69 sustained-shift signals, against just one fresh spike. Twin Peaks robbery turned in a streak break, meaning a long run of suppressed counts has ended. South of Market and Pacific Heights both registered vandalism drops, continuing a pattern of falling property-damage counts across multiple neighborhoods.

With 179 total signals across 41 neighborhoods and almost no upward movement, August holds the structural shape of the past several months. The Lincoln Park rare event is worth monitoring for recurrence, but a single incident in a quiet neighborhood does not indicate a directional change. The broader decline holds, and absent a reversal in the Lakeshore other-larceny spike or the Twin Peaks streak break, the next briefing will likely read as a continuation.

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 August 2026 briefing.

Is crime in San Francisco down?

Yes. Citywide incident volume is 20.1% lower than the prior 12 months.

Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 35,122 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 43,943 in the year before, down 8,821 incidents.

Is violent crime in San Francisco down?

Yes. Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 14.5% combined in the trailing 12 months.

That's 4,134 violent incidents in the past year against 4,833 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 20.9% combined in the trailing 12 months.

That's 25,644 property incidents in the past year against 32,417 in the prior year.

What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in San Francisco?

Presidio — 8.2 incidents per 1,000 residents
Seacliff — 11.7 incidents per 1,000 residents
Sunset/Parkside — 12.8 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: 43.1% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.

Bernal Heights logged 682 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 1,198 the year before.

Which neighborhood in San Francisco saw the biggest crime increase?

Lakeshore: 10.0% more incidents than the prior 12 months.

Lakeshore logged 889 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 808 the year before.

City profile

The denominators behind the numbers

SOURCES · US CENSUS ACS 2024 · DATASF · SFPD

Geography

Land area46.9 mi²

Water area185 mi²

Coastline3 sides · Pacific + Bay

Elevation0–925 ft

Police districts10

Neighborhoods41 (analysis units)

Peninsula city; sharp microclimate and topography breaks (hills, parks, freeways) define neighborhood boundaries more than political ones.

Population

830,235

Density~17,702 / mi²

Median age40.0

Households~364K

Avg HH size2.21

ACS 2024 5-year estimates, county-level (San Francisco County).

Housing

Units~415K

Median rent$2,476

Median home value$1.39M

Vacancy12.2%

Tenure

Renter 62%Owner 38%

Stock

SFH 30%2–4 unit 20%5+ unit 49%

Economy & people

Median HH income$140,970

Poverty rate11.2%

Unemployment6.1%

Bachelor's+60.3%

Foreign-born34.0%

Age distribution

<18 14%18–34 27%35–64 41%65+ 18%

City-level only. We deliberately do not juxtapose these with neighborhood-level crime data — see the methodology for why.

Built environment

Street miles1,260

Parks (acres)5,860

Transit stops3,420

Walk score88 (high)

High pedestrian + transit exposure shifts crime-rate denominators away from “per resident” toward “per person-hour outdoors.”

Policing context

SFPD sworn officers1,537

Officers / 10K res.19.0

911 calls / yr1.21M

Open data lag≈ 48 hrs

SFPD reclassified some larceny coding in 2024; that window is noted on the methodology page so it doesn’t skew baselines.

Interactive map

Every neighborhood, color-coded

CLICK A NEIGHBORHOOD →

RAW COUNT · 1Y

121,8343,655

Rankings

Largest moves this month

RANKED BY ANOMALY STRENGTH

#	Neighborhood	Category	MoM	YoY 12mo	vs baseline	Signal
01	Lakeshore	Other Larceny	+74%	+35%	+68%	SPIKE
02	Lincoln Park	Aggravated Assault	-100%	—	—	RARE EVENT
03	Twin Peaks	Robbery	—	—	—	STREAK BREAK
04	South of Market	Vandalism	-39%	-24%	-35%	DROP
05	Pacific Heights	Vandalism	0%	-42%	-52%	DROP
06	Nob Hill	Vandalism	+18%	-27%	-45%	DROP
07	Outer Mission	Burglary	+50%	-42%	-50%	DROP
08	Portola	Burglary	+100%	-40%	-64%	DROP
09	Western Addition	Vandalism	-47%	-38%	-41%	DROP
10	Bayview Hunters Point	Vandalism	+10%	-14%	-28%	DROP
11	Sunset/Parkside	Robbery	—	-44%	-58%	DROP
12	Noe Valley	Theft from Vehicle	-33%	-30%	-60%	DROP

Showing top 12 of 20 (neighborhood × category) cells with tracked signals.

Multi-year trends

The long arc — eight years of monthly counts

SELECT A CATEGORY ↓

Latest 12mo47

YoY 12mo+18%

5-year change+262%

Window change+96%

Peak (12mo avg)5 · Apr '26

Trough (12mo avg)1 · Nov '20

ALL CATEGORIES · 8-YEAR ARC · 12-MO ROLLING MEAN

2018 ─────────────────── 2026

Read this month

Four neighborhoods worth your time

All 41 neighborhoods →

SPIKE · OTHER LARCENY

Lakeshore

The past 12 months saw 536 incidents — about 68% above the 318 average from prior years.

Read briefing →RARE EVENT · AGGRAVATED ASSAULT

Lincoln Park

1 incident in the past 90 days. Last comparable occurrence: June 2021.

Read briefing →STREAK BREAK · ROBBERY

Twin Peaks

First incident since January 2024 — a 3-year gap ended this month.

Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISM

South of Market

The past 12 months saw 465 incidents — about 35% below the 713 average from prior years.

Read briefing →

When does it happen?

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.

HOUR OF DAY · ALL CATEGORIES

Hour 0 is mildly inflated by reports without a known time defaulting to midnight — see methodology.

DAY OF WEEK · ALL CATEGORIES

MONTH OF YEAR · ALL CATEGORIES

Browse

All 41 San Francisco neighborhoods

Crime rate trends and August 2026 briefings for every tracked neighborhood. Alphabetical.