[bryans]

Except for the fact that what is happening in San Francisco is completely normal. All violent crime stats in SF are still trending downward. The only increase in crime is non-violent theft, and the current rates are just a return to pre-pandemic levels, which makes sense given that there were far fewer opportunities for people to interact during the pandemic. And all of these crime rates are relatively the same or even better than the rest of the country.

What you're experiencing is confirmation bias. You read about one crime, then started noticing all of the stories about crime, formed a theory based on this hyper focusing, and now you believe it's worse than ever despite the stats clearly showing otherwise.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis...

https://sfgov.org/scorecards/public-safety/violent-crime-rat...

[darth_avocado]

What I am experiencing is data being misused. I've lived in the Bay Area for more than a decade and yeah, it's not as violent as the 90s, but compared to a decade ago, violence is increasing.

If you are a resident, you very well know that a huge portion of crimes, violent or not, are not being reported because of the end result. Property crime is through the roof. My car has been broken into 3 times in the last year or so. Before that, I've only had my car broken into once in a decade before. I've had to call the police 3-4 times (apart from the car break ins) in the last 2 years for individuals in crisis, sometimes threatening violence. I never had to do it in the decade before. In fact, the first time I had to do it, I wasn't sure if I call 911 and had to look up the non emergency line. Yes, all of this is anecdotal or "personal experience", but talking to everyone I know around me, all of their "personal experiences" have only gotten worse recently. Which makes me believe that at this point, the data paints as accurate picture as anecdotes these days.

[bryans]

You're claiming that hard data from numerous sources doesn't matter because it doesn't match up with your personal experience, and then doubled down on your claim that violent crime is increasing, despite every source imaginable disagreeing with you. We apparently live in different universes.

https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Francisco-crime-Che...

https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime...

[darth_avocado]

What I’m suggesting is that the “data” is not accurate because a large amount of crime, property or violent, is not reported. Things like theft and property damage is not reported unless it’s thousands of dollars or if insurance requires it. Things like damage to your garage door because someone tried to break in, stolen catalytic converters, stolen Amazon packages etc rarely get reported. Retail theft also gets underreported. Violent crime like someone spitting on you, throwing things at you, pushing you to the ground and running away etc. doesn’t get reported unless there is a big injury or a weapon was involved.

[bryans]

Again, you're making things up because it "sounds correct" to you, but that doesn't make it reality. Your examples of violent crimes that go unreported seem to be based entirely on interactions you've had or heard about with homeless people. Yes, SF has a substantial homeless population, which increases the likelihood of those extremely minor "violent" offenses happening. But that isn't new, at all, and it's baseless and ridiculous to suggest that an increase in awkward incidents with the homeless means that there is a tsunami of attempted murders.

Seattle, NYC, Dallas, Chicago and a hundred others also have huge homeless populations and even higher rates of violent crime that are actually trending upward, but you don't see the populations of those cities going into a full panic or claiming that the violent sky is falling. SF residents are getting caught up in mass hysteria. It's really as simple as that.

[rvnx]

He is explaining that once crime becomes so common, it is not reported (and hence not statistically accounted for).

Also statistics can be manipulated in many ways, I'd trust 1000% more the feeling of people living in the town, than official statistics.

Here, all the testimonials I see, my own experience in SF, plus all the posts really confirm that there is an issue, without having to care about the statistics or what the politics or police wants to show.

You don't see such with Tokyo for example.

And Tokyo, you get your cup of tea/coffee stolen, it may be accounted as a crime. In SF they would laugh at you and it would be a total waste of time.

[bryans]

The idea that violent crime is reported less in SF than any other city is a fallacy based on, again, confirmation bias. Also, theft isn't violent crime. And as I already explained twice, theft in SF has returned to pre-pandemic levels, while violent crime in SF is still consistently lower than most large cities and decreasing. Violent crimes almost always get reported. So, your argument is based on the opposite of reality.

It's a concerning level of paranoia to suggest that multiple and separate data collection sources, including the city government, local police, state police, the FBI, justice advocates and local journalists, are ALL manipulating statistics to create a narrative that SF is safer than your perception. Especially considering that your personal narrative would be preferable to the police agencies, since it would allow them to more easily demand (and receive) more funding if violent crime were actually on the rise.

Please go read the threads about the Bob Lee suspect arrest, so you can see all of the people who were making the same mass-hysterical argument you're making, but admitting how they now regret getting caught up in that "SF is the Thunderdome" hysteria.

[baremetal]

>It's a concerning level of paranoia to suggest that multiple and separate data collection sources, including the city government, local police, state police, the FBI, justice advocates and local journalists, are ALL manipulating statistics to create a narrative that SF is safer than your perception.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair

>Please go read the threads about the Bob Lee suspect arrest, so you can see all of the people who were making the same mass-hysterical argument you're making, but admitting how they now regret getting caught up in that "SF is the Thunderdome" hysteria.

Yes, you really disproved SF as a violent and lawless place with that argument.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No, he's claiming those sources are shit because they don't recognize what everyone in SF knows - that crime reports aren't taken and thus they can't be counted.

> "Below is a look at the total number of crimes reported to the San Francisco Police Department over the past five years."

Those "studies" aren't hard data, they're pure propaganda.

[bryans]

The police would prefer the statistics show a rise in violent crime, because that would quickly result in an increase of their funding, which they actively and publicly pursue constantly. So if it's propaganda, it's self-defeating propaganda, making it far more likely that you're experiencing paranoia based on mass hysteria, rather than a police department going massively out of their way to turn down millions of dollars.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The police simply count what they can - actual formal reports. They aren't lying because they aren't claiming that this fully describes the situation in the city.

The fact checkers, who I am accusing of being empty political bias machines, lie by pretending that "are the official crime statistics lower" is the question that residents and tourists need to know. Their headlines and conclusions don't match the questions they're asking and they're smarmy in their dismissals of disbelievers as politically motivated.

> if it's propaganda, it's self-defeating propaganda,

No, it's not the police who are propagandizing here. It's the "news" misusing the police data.

> making it far more likely that you're experiencing paranoia based on mass hysteria

Very tactile hallucinations.

[remarkEon]

The current state of this debate is to essentially bully people into agreeing with manipulated statistics, that seeing the density of human filth degeneracy and decadence, that this is all “normal”. Finally, we’ve found a “lived experience” we can ignore.

[tablespoon]

> What you're experiencing is confirmation bias. You read about one crime, then started noticing all of the stories about crime, formed a theory based on this hyper focusing, and now you believe it's worse than ever despite the stats clearly showing otherwise.

Exactly. The whole "crime is terrible in SF" is just a Republican propaganda narrative that people who should know better are buying into.