I believe in San Francisco it boils down to the reluctant acknowledgment that petty crime is now so rampant as to be beyond the resources allocated to keep it in check. There aren’t enough court rooms or jail cells to hold the heroin addicts and homeless people breaking into automobiles, burglarizing houses, stealing vehicles to live in and shoplifting at levels beyond precedent. Criminals understand that as with a herd of zebras, the safety is in the fact that when it comes to the police, the lions cannot possibly devour but a small percentage them.

According to the Los Angeles Times there has been a rise in armed robbery during the pandemic. It hasn’t seemed to have affected my area. I think the rise may be due to a combination of job loss, less law enforcement due to the pandemic and courts being closed.

With all of the shootings that are going on, there must be a rise in crime.

The only crime I have personally noticed increasing is cybercrime. I’ve been getting more dodgy calls and text messages than before. In real life, robberies are down while drug offences and domestic abuse cases are up.

Property crimes are up in our area, but violent crimes are down. There have been a lot of shootings lately, though. Nothing near our neighborhood, except bicycle thefts

No. Also less panhandlers. My doctor was killed last year. He was willing to find out what my time traveling was and how to treat it. Now I am back to square one.

From carjacking’s to weed-laced with fentanyl, a lot more gun crime and gang activity. I was told we’re having gang wars with the Mexican cartels, due to many recent violent kidnappings. Our local scanners show many J4’s (dead people) every single day now, usually from drugs.

@RedDeerGuy1 That’s sad. How was he killed?

More cars being stolen. They say it’s gangs from CT that come down here (I live near CT border in an affluent area). NYC has more violent crimes, it seems. More random attacks of people on the street, shootings in Times Square, etc.

So what have you heard people claim @Desmosthenes?

It vaguely reminds me of the Cop Killer/ Body Count album release and aftermath in 1992.

@Yeahright He was killed by a patient in his clinic. With a machete and hammer. Dr. Walter Renalds was his name.

Sorry for the typo. His name was Dr. Walter Reynolds

@RedDeerGuy1 Oh my Lord…what a terrible thing. I’m so sorry.

@KNOWITALL A common narrative, especially regarding the problems in many large U.S. cities, is that in the wake of George Floyd, police departments have been gutted and crime is rising as a result. In SF specifically, the DA has a reputation for being “soft on crime” and while overall crime has gone down in SF, crimes like theft and burglaries have gone up. (A recently Daily Mail heading said “Crime is basically legal in SF”). That’s a common perception, not just among people from outside the Bay Area online, but among people who live here as well.

^ It’s unfortunate for those people that it’s all bullshit. Police departments haven’t been gutted. Even those departments that have made minor adjustments of funds have made those for the next year, so any possible rise in crime cannot objectively be related to this.

Pro-police “hard on crime” types will use any opportunity to peddle their crap.

Crime rates go up and down all the time. Everyone expected crime to go up following the pandemic – and it did (in some places, and only when you parse the data correctly). These are expected results. Anyone who ties this to Floyd and protests should be laughed out of a career.

I’ve seen that the media are also connecting any post-pandemic crime rise to minor improvements made in the bail system. Unbelievable.

@Caravan That’s what’s happened here, too.

We have had issues recruiting police because the pay is fairly low and the crime is getting pretty bad. They even waived the marijuana use restriction to get more officers, believe it or not.

The criminals are often arrested and out in three days, since we’re in the process of building a new county jail, but for now there’s no room in the in and they know it.

After Senate Bill 5 and Ferguson, in my city you don’t even have to pay a speeding ticket and you will not be prosecuted unless it’s felony. So no tax money for the city unless it’s just a good citizen that wants to pay it.