San Francisco: Burglaries Are "Rampant"

Tourists to San Francisco are almost non-existent thanks to the pandemic (and homelessness and car smash-and-grabs and closed restaurants etc.), so the burglars have switched to breaking into stores.

Rampant burglaries plague San Francisco businesses, compounding the hurt of the pandemic

Across San Francisco, businesses are hiring armed security guards, pouring thousands into replacing shattered windows and even pulling up stakes amid a rash of commercial theft and vandalism.

Burglaries in San Francisco have spiked by 62% so far this year, rising from 691 reported incidents in 2020 to 1,123 as of mid-February. The break-ins have been particularly glaring in a city where overall crime is down by 31%, and San Francisco’s once most seemingly intractable crime — car break-ins — has plummeted by 52%...

Most of the burglaries in San Francisco are never solved. What police call the “clearance rate” — the percentage of arrests per reported crime — was 8.1% for burglaries this year to date, down from 14.5% by this time last year, according to police data.

As we've opined before, Progressive government proclaims the unimportance of property versus caring for people, and the surge in property crime was easily foreseeable. "Petty" theft ($950 or less) is a misdemeanor and on the police back-burner; "most...are never solved." Well, people may be the priority, but I don't see a lot of happy people in San Francisco.

The election is over, the winners safely installed, and negative information can't be used by Republicans. The Chronicle has now resumed reporting.