Shoplifting Reported Crimes Skyrocketing With Mission St. Target Leading the Way
San Francisco crime rates drastically shifted in the pandemic. These charts show what’s happening now
In a recent Bay Area Council poll of registered voters, a majority said the Bay Area was not a safe place to live, an increase from prior years.

This public sentiment could soon drive political change: In a separate poll conducted by the same research firm, nearly 70% of likely S.F. voters said they would vote to recall District Attorney Chesa Boudin (June 7), who ran on a platform of lowering the city’s jail population and seeking alternatives to harsh sentences for lower-level offenders.

The Chronicle analyzed police incident data through March, comparing 2022 crime rates with the first quarters of the previous four years. While police data can be useful in measuring trends, it’s important to note that it measures only reported crimes, and thus may not accurately measure crime in the city.

The data shows that crime shifted dramatically during the pandemic. But now that San Francisco is returning to pre-pandemic behavior, so are its crime rates — a pattern in keeping with statewide trends.

Most property crimes are returning to their pre-pandemic levels

Property crime trends have seen the most dramatic changes in San Francisco, primarily because of the pandemic.

Burglaries, which spiked starting in mid-2020, have declined this year to their pre-pandemic rates. Now that offices are reopening and people appear to be returning to the city, burglary rates are getting back to normal.

But there’s an exception: shoplifting, which spiked well above pre-pandemic levels this year. That’s a continuation of an upward trajectory in San Francisco since late last year.

Lofstrom said that the increase is in keeping with statewide trends, though San Francisco’s rates appear to have decreased more than other cities initially and increased more recently.

It’s important to note that lower-level crimes like larceny theft are consistently underreported, so trends might not be perfectly reliable if the amount of underreporting changes over time. For instance, much of the increase in larceny thefts in late 2021 and early 2022 was due to an increase in reported shoplifting from a single Target store downtown (Mission St.). Take away the Target and shoplifting rates look like they did in early 2018.