How bad was crime in SF in 2023? We looked into it.

A look at the numbers, though, tells a more complicated story. In 2023, crime in San Francisco, including retail and motor vehicle theft, has decreased in most categories, albeit only slightly. But some crimes, such as robberies and motor vehicle theft, have gone up. 

SFGATE spoke with the San Francisco Police Department and looked into the numbers to break down what major crime trends the city saw in 2023. (Data runs through Dec. 24, 2023, the latest date for which SFPD had available numbers.) 

It now appears, though, that the crimes were not random. An acquaintance of Lee’s is set to stand trial for his killing, and Wong’s boyfriend is the suspect in her death. According to police data, there were 55 homicides in 2023, as of Dec. 24, compared to 53 for that same period in 2022. (As some cases involve multiple victims, the homicide figure reflects the number of people killed, not the number of cases.)

Evan Sernoffsky, a spokesperson for SFPD, told SFGATE that violent crimes, including homicides, are the most important cases for the department to pursue. He said SFPD has solved about 80% of its open homicide cases in 2023, which is above the national average of 52%, according to data from Statista, a firm that collects crime data across the world. In 2018, San Francisco police solved 95.7% of its open homicide cases, Sernoffsky said.

Of the three largest Bay Area cities, San Francisco is mid-tier for its homicide numbers. As of Dec. 14, Oakland had 114 homicides in 2023, the Oakland Police Department confirmed to SFGATE. It’s the fourth year in a row the city has had more than 100 homicides. During the same period in San Jose, police recorded 35 homicides. In 2023, the national murder rate dropped by nearly 13% since the previous year, according to a recent report from AH Datalytics, a data analysis firm.

According to SFPD data, larceny theft, defined as stealing property without the use of force or violence, is one of the only crimes to see a significant decrease since last year. The department reported 31,428 cases in 2023, about 4,432 fewer theft cases than in 2022. The drop comes after an increase of about 4,400 cases from 2021 to 2022.

Examples of larceny theft include picking pockets, car accessory theft and bicycle theft. But it’s shoplifting, which the department has attempted to crack down in 2023, that’s been the retail theft problem most documented in many viral videos.

While social media videos may make it seem like individual thieves are causing havoc in city businesses, SFPD said a large number of organized crime groups have been the most difficult shoplifters to catch. To safeguard loss, stores in and around San Francisco, including Target and Safeway, have locked up many of their items.

The blitz is meant to address factors which Sernoffsky said have made it difficult for SFPD to bust organized shoplifting in the past. Such groups are quick, he said, and they usually get away before officers arrive. Also, when the large number of thieves typical in organized crime groups are in a store, it can overwhelm employees and responding law enforcement.  (The police department is struggling to keep a full staff, with 500 vacant positions, according to Sernoffsky.)

More money has helped, as well. In September 2023, the city of San Francisco received $17.3 million in state funding to help combat retail theft. The police department received $15.3 million of that funding, with $2 million going to the District Attorney’s Office. 
 
Some retailers, including Target, have blamed numerous store closures in 2023 on the organized shoplifting. But a Dec. 19 report from CNBC found that the majority of the Target stores that reported the most retail theft stayed open, while the locations that closed had among the lowest reported thefts in San Francisco.

Catalytic converter theft, a common crime in the Bay Area that has resulted in thousands of stolen converters per year (with some people even falling victim to the theft more than four times), plummeted in 2023. 

One reason for the decline, as SFGATE previously reported, is the value of precious metals in converters has gone down. In 2021, some of those metals were valued as high as $30,000 per ounce, more valuable than gold. But since then, their value has fallen to less than $5,000 per ounce.

The California Legislature also passed two laws to combat catalytic converter theft, both of which went into effect in January 2023, SFGATE previously reported. Senate Bill 1087 requires that people selling catalytic converters keep a record every time the part is bought or sold. This means that only certain sellers can legally sell the parts. Assembly Bill 1740 requires sellers to include additional information about catalytic converters, such as identifying information about the vehicle it came from.

A law going into effect in January 2024 may also help. Introduced by an advocate for the LA County District Attorney’s Office, it requires car sellers to put the vehicle identification number on the converters, making them easier to track once stolen. (Catalytic converter theft is included in the larceny theft category.)                

Though catalytic converter theft declined, car theft in general increased, which has reflected a wider Bay Area and national trend. There were 6,571 motor vehicle thefts reported in San Francisco in 2023 compared to 6,222 in 2022, according to SFPD crime data. 

Thieves have specifically targeted Kia and Hyundai models, both in California and nationwide, after a viral TikTok trend showed thieves easily stealing the vehicles using just a USB cord. State attorneys called out the company in March for failing to install specific safety measures that would help prevent the cars from being stolen.

“Historically, there’s always been vehicles that [thieves] go after because of some security measure that they’ve discovered that, unfortunately, is weaker in some model cars just like with the catalytic converters,” Sernoffsky said. 

He added that SFPD believes the installation of 400 automated license plate readers throughout the city in January will help mitigate the crime. If a car that was reported stolen passes one of these automated readers, SFPD will be flagged, he said. 

More robberies have occurred in the city in 2023, with 2,693 cases reported in 2023, a 14.5% increase over last year. As SFPD defines it, a robbery is when thieves use force or fear to steal items from someone, such as someone getting mugged. The highest robbery numbers were reported in the Mission, with 426 cases, and the lowest, at 65 cases, in the police station’s Park District, which includes the east side of Golden Gate Park, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and the Castro neighborhood.

“We’ve seen robberies go up unfortunately, and that’s something we’re really laser focused on right now,” Sernoffsky said. 

Burglaries, which include home break-ins and smash-and-grab car burglaries, have decreased slightly. SFPD reported 5,481 burglaries in 2023, a 7.1% drop since 2022.