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.
Lakeshore other-larceny rose 70% against its multi-year baseline, the sharpest single signal in San Francisco this month and the first time this neighborhood-category combination has topped the rankings. The backdrop is otherwise quiet: no demoted recurring lead this briefing, and the Lakeshore move stands out against a month in which nearly every other tracked signal pointed downward.
Citywide volume is down 19.7% against the prior 12 months, 34,486 incidents against 42,928 in the year before. Vandalism is running below trend across multiple neighborhoods, with South of Market, Pacific Heights, and Nob Hill each registering drops in the top five. Lincoln Park aggravated assault produced a rare-event signal, a single outlier cluster rather than a sustained shift, rounding out the notable moves.
With 88 below-trend signals and 60 sustained-shift signals against just one spike and one rare event across 41 neighborhoods, September 2026 reads as a continuation of the multi-year decline rather than a structural turning point. The Lakeshore move is worth tracking in October to see whether it holds or reverts; at one month, it is a data point, not a trend.
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 September 2026 briefing.
Is crime in San Francisco down?
Yes. Citywide incident volume is 19.7% lower than the prior 12 months.
Across the trailing 12-month window we tracked 34,486 incidents in NIBRS-aligned categories, compared to 42,928 in the year before, down 8,442 incidents.
Is violent crime in San Francisco down?
Yes. Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and sexual assault are down 14.1% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 4,064 violent incidents in the past year against 4,729 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 20.5% combined in the trailing 12 months.
That's 25,144 property incidents in the past year against 31,645 in the prior year.
What are the safest neighborhoods to stay in San Francisco?
- Presidio — 8.5 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Seacliff — 10.5 incidents per 1,000 residents
- Sunset/Parkside — 12.2 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?
Glen Park: 42.6% fewer incidents than the prior 12 months.
Glen Park logged 143 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 249 the year before.
Which neighborhood in San Francisco saw the biggest crime increase?
Lakeshore: 9.8% more incidents than the prior 12 months.
Lakeshore logged 877 incidents in the trailing 12 months against 799 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 | Lakeshore | Other Larceny | -39% | +41% | +70% | SPIKE | |
| 02 | Lincoln Park | Aggravated Assault | — | — | — | RARE EVENT | |
| 03 | South of Market | Vandalism | +15% | -20% | -34% | DROP | |
| 04 | Pacific Heights | Vandalism | -63% | -46% | -56% | DROP | |
| 05 | Nob Hill | Vandalism | -8% | -30% | -48% | DROP | |
| 06 | Western Addition | Vandalism | +30% | -40% | -44% | DROP | |
| 07 | Outer Mission | Burglary | -33% | -39% | -51% | DROP | |
| 08 | Portola | Burglary | -100% | -36% | -67% | DROP | |
| 09 | Golden Gate Park | Motor Vehicle Theft | -100% | -37% | -58% | DROP | |
| 10 | Bayview Hunters Point | Vandalism | -10% | -13% | -28% | DROP | |
| 11 | Castro/Upper Market | Motor Vehicle Theft | -67% | -44% | -63% | DROP | |
| 12 | Treasure Island | Burglary | — | -55% | -67% | DROP |
The long arc — eight years of monthly counts
Four neighborhoods worth your time
Lakeshore
The past 12 months saw 542 incidents — about 70% above the 319 average from prior years.
Read briefing →RARE EVENT · AGGRAVATED ASSAULTLincoln Park
1 incident in the past 90 days. Last comparable occurrence: June 2021.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMSouth of Market
The past 12 months saw 468 incidents — about 34% below the 711 average from prior years.
Read briefing →DROP · VANDALISMPacific Heights
The past 12 months saw 80 incidents — about 56% below the 184 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 September 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.