Bernal Heights Crime Rate Trends — San Francisco
Bernal Heights is a hilltop residential neighborhood south of the Mission, organized around the open green space of Bernal Heights Park and the cafes and shops of Cortland Avenue. Predominantly single-family Victorian and stucco homes, it draws families and longtime San Franciscans for its panoramic city views and quiet streets.
Nine categories moved in Bernal Heights in March 2026 — four ran below trend on a monthly basis and five registered as sustained structural shifts. The overall shape is a broad, multi-year decline across both property and violent crime, with no fresh spikes or rare-event signals anywhere in the mix.
Theft from Vehicle, Vandalism, and Burglary all posted below-trend signals this month. The 12-month picture deepens that story: Theft from Vehicle stands at 118 incidents against a prior-year total of 251 (down 53.0%), Burglary at 92 against 183 (down 49.7%), and Other Larceny at 262 against 406 (down 35.5%). Arson is the one exception — 11 incidents over the current 12 months against 6 in the prior year, an 83.3% move on a small base — but every other tracked category is running below where it was a year ago.
Notable signals 4
Theft from Vehicle
The past 12 months saw 118 incidents — about 71% below the 405 average from prior years.
Vandalism
The past 12 months saw 136 incidents — about 42% below the 236 average from prior years.
Burglary
The past 12 months saw 92 incidents — about 53% below the 197 average from prior years.
Motor Vehicle Theft
The past 12 months saw 111 incidents — about 62% below the 296 average from prior years.
All categories, last 24 months
Each panel: recent monthly count vs. trailing 12-month context. MoM is the most recent month vs. the one before; 12mo YoY compares the trailing year to the year before that.
What's been quietly true for a year
Spikes get attention. Sustained shifts shape policy. These are multi-quarter patterns where the past 12-month total differs meaningfully from the year before — they often precede the baseline resetting.
- Theft from Vehicle has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 118, down 53% from 251 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Other Larceny has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 262, down 36% from 406 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Burglary has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 92, down 50% from 183 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
- Motor Vehicle Theft has reset to a lower baseline.
The trailing 12-month count is 111, down 44% from 197 the year before. If the trend holds another quarter, it will pull the multi-year baseline down.
What next month likely looks like
Forecasts trained through March 2026, with a likely range we're 95% confident the actual count will fall inside. Categories with too little recent volume — or violent categories at the neighborhood level — show no forecast and are surfaced through signals above instead. See the methodology page for the gating rules.
Aggravated Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Arson
Below the volume threshold for a reliable forecast — too few incidents in recent months to project from.
Burglary
Homicide
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Motor Vehicle Theft
Other Larceny
Robbery
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Sexual Assault
Too low-volume per neighborhood for a reliable point forecast — see the rare-event and streak-break signals above instead.
Theft from Vehicle
Vandalism
How Bernal Heights compares
Peer neighborhoods picked by closest 12-month theft from vehicle volume — a pragmatic v1 of peer matching. Demographic / housing-stock peer matching isn't built yet (we deliberately don't ingest income or race data alongside crime). Volume similarity has the right intuition: “neighborhoods experiencing comparable theft from vehicle levels.”
Haight Ashbury
117 incidents over the past 12 months — 1 below Bernal Heights's 118.
Open page →Lakeshore
116 incidents over the past 12 months — 2 below Bernal Heights's 118.
Open page →Excelsior
114 incidents over the past 12 months — 4 below Bernal Heights's 118.
Open page →Recurring local terms (last 12 months)
Top terms in incident descriptions for Bernal Heights, excluding generic crime taxonomy. Useful as texture — what kinds of specifics show up here that don't show up elsewhere.
Hour-of-day, day-of-week, and seasonality
Distribution of bucketed incidents in this neighborhood 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.
How we built this page
Data → Anomalies → Forecast → Page
Incident data is pulled from SFPD's open dataset, mapped to 10 NIBRS-aligned categories, and aggregated to neighborhood × category × month. Anomalies are surfaced using strict thresholds (~p < 0.01). Forecasts are Prophet with low-count gating; violent categories at the neighborhood level skip the forecast and show rare-event / streak signals instead.
Spike rule: 12-mo total > baseline mean + 2.5σ AND ≥ 20 incidents AND 6-mo confirms. Drop rule: 12-mo total < baseline mean − 2.5σ AND baseline mean ≥ 20. Rare event: any incident in the last 90 days, no prior comparable in ≥ 5 years.