As a Boston resident I haven’t had any incidents of theft or violence in 10 years. I walk around with my toddler without issue.

Walking around (nearly any part of) San Francisco day or night with a toddler is no problem at all, but don’t leave a backpack sitting on your car’s passenger seat if you don’t want your window smashed. The problem is property crimes not violent crime. One of the main issues is that the SF police are unwilling to lift a finger about nearly anything, and more or less laugh at you if you ask for their help.

> One of the main issues is that the SF police are unwilling to lift a finger about nearly anything.

Isn’t this a direct effect of the DA refusing to prosecute? What’s the point of police getting involved if the crime isn’t even considered a crime by the prosecutor?

In my opinion blaming the DA was always a lazy excuse. Now that he has been recalled in favor of a “tough” replacement, how do you explain their continuing non-responsiveness?

>Now that he has been recalled in favor of a “tough” replacement...

That was in June of this year. Do you really believe that the change will happen that fast?

There has not been and I do not believe there will be any appreciable change in police behavior any time in the foreseeable future, without a much more significant reform effort. They’ve been unresponsive to property crime for many years. They started blaming Boudin for their unresponsiveness before he was even elected, and they’ll still be blaming him for their unresponsiveness long into the future.

>Recently my plumber neighbors had their truck stolen with their tools in it and told the police precisely where it was but the police wouldn’t do anything, so my neighbors found the thief and beat him up. The police came to ask why there was a fist fight in the middle of the sidewalk. The thief ran away, so the police shrugged and left.

How much of this is a consequence of prosecutors and judges who don't jail thieves or people who commit assaults? I'm not fan of the police, but what is the point of arresting people and giving them a ride to the police station only to be released back onto the street?

No, the cops didn’t suddenly magically change after Boudin was elected (and recalled). They don’t care.

No. The DA was only there for two years and this level of police incompetence has been a fixture of the city for at least the past 15.

Probably didn’t help matters but no the police have been garbage for longer than he was the DA.

Before Chesa they blamed Prop 47. There's always some excuse.

> SF police are unwilling to lift a finger about nearly anything, and more or less laugh at you if you ask for their help

That's rather uncharitable given the sheer volume of property crime facing the city. Literally hundreds of calls a day... while in 2020 the mayor bragged about cutting the police funding by $120 million and moving it to other organizations. It has since been restored (I think?).

Even a B-corp with a very liberal owner couldn't take it anymore when their windows were broken 5 times and organized theft groups raided the store on a regular basis (posted 2 days ago): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davismsmith_its-sad-but-san-f...

The mayor bragged about that, but did not ever actually do it.

Boston has a higher murder rate and overall violent crime rate than San Francisco, as do most large cities.

San Francisco's problem is rampant property crime: Property crime is still real crime and harms people mentally... but it also means SF is physically safer than many cities that have less overall crime rates, because of their higher violent crime rates.

Since it's often beneficial to an agenda to conflate the two so you'll always see something like:

"San Franciscans face about a 1-in-16 chance each year of being a victim of property or violent crime"

(https://www.hoover.org/research/why-san-francisco-nearly-mos...)

Boston's data is probably skewed because unincorporated cities like Cambridge and Brookline aren't included but Mattapan and Roxbury are.

But some of the cities along the northern part of Orange Line might have more crime than West Roxbury, Roslindale, or Beacon Hill. It’s always going to be somewhat arbitrary

I would be surprised if many less half of people haven’t had something stolen at some point, but this survey is just about the last five years.

I didn't notice that, that's an important point

I don’t think I’ve had any theft incidents in many years in Seattle.

I’ve been in Seattle for a mere 8 months and I’ve been robbed already.

Sounds like it’s time to setup the Anhk-Morpork thieves’ guild.

https://wiki.lspace.org/Thieves%27_Guild

Because you are going to have crime, it might as well be organized.

I would rather prefer the Elder Scrolls version of the Thieves Guild, which places importance on not harming your targets or other members of the guild, as well as emphasizing the need for stealth and skill over violence.

Robbery is pretty rare most places but theft writ large is much more common: stolen bikes, stolen packages, rifling through open cars and/or breaking windows to take things from inside, things like that. My understanding is that San Francisco's crime problem has been mostly those property crimes rather than violent crime like robbery.

My car was broken into three times in Seattle over part 5 years, two times in Ballard and once in West Seattle.

I live in Seattle and I don’t think I personally know anyone here who hasn’t had something of theirs stolen. Mostly cars broken into, bikes stolen, things stolen out of their yard.

Amazon packages for me.

I visited Seattle for 9 days, and had my car smashed. There was nothing even in it.

I was in Seattle for 5 days and had my $8500 mountain bike stolen from within my car (they broke a window to get in), parked in the lot of a 4 Points Sheraton.

I know this is Seattle now but purely time-based: I visited SF for an hour last year and was victim of a smash and grab. Parked across the street across from a restaurant near the wharf with people sitting/eating outside so I thought it would be safe. I'm guessing partly because there were some plastic shopping bags in the backseat (with candy, which they didn't take) and because the rental car had out of state plates. When I returned the car at SF airport, there was a row of cars in front with the exact same window (rear driver's side) smashed. As I waited for paperwork/replacement, several other cars came in with the same window smashed. At least when I called the PD they told me to just file a report online (which I needed for insurance) and asked if they should send an officer - to which I said, "no, why would you send an officer now?". I don't remember the answer. Worse was trying to get a hold of someone at the rental car company... ugh what a disaster.

I lived in NYC for ~7 years and never had anything stolen.

Lots of comments in this thread are saying that San Francisco police have repeatedly refused to take police reports. If the police won't take police reports, it artificially makes crime look lower.

I think we can all agree that lawn gnome theft is a hugely important problem that needs far more attention from law enforcement.

If someone steals my car I understand what has happened.

Someone stealing a lawn gnome would weird me out a bit.