The year in Crime: 2021

Each New Year brings an opportunity to recap the year just ended.  It appears the City found my past posts on annual crime statistics here and here valuable because just as I was about to email the Chief to get the 2021 statistics, they came out in last week's e-newsletter.  So here is the update

Monthly Average                        2016    2017    2018    2019      2020    2021

Residential Burglaries                   5        2            3        3          2            2

Vehicle Burglaries                      23      25        21       39         20         25

     Thefts from Unlocked Vehicles                              -          14            8

Commercial Burglaries                  9      4            5        4            6            5

     Construction site theft                                             -           1            1

     Package thefts                                                        -            4            2

Other Thefts                               60      51        56        61          -             -

Robberies                                    1        1            1        2          2            2

Stolen Vehicles                            9        6          4         6           9            7

Vandalism                                  13    13          11       12          13           13

B'game crime appears pretty stable except for vehicle burglaries that increased by 60 last year.  2015 was a similar year.  I'm not sure if the statistic includes the catalytic converter thefts that seem to be increasing and probably not reported since there is virtually no chance of getting yours back.  I'm also pretty sure based on the Ring videos I see on-line that a lot of porch pirate thefts go unreported.  All in all, BPD is doing a good job showing presence around town and that may not be "half the battle" but it certainly contributes.

Comments

[Growling Tiger]

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/alleged-catalytic-converter-thieves-arrested-in-san-mateo/article_52341992-74e8-11ec-bfb3-2b3ddf350e70.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1642172422&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

[Hammer the Nail]

Does anyone in town believe there is only one construction site theft a month? Maybe they mean one per construction site per month.

[Joe]

You seldom see a piece of Fake News get eviscerated by another piece of news in the same paper, same section, same day in side-by-side articles, but perhaps that is why the SF Comical is sort of withering away. If not for sports, the obits and the Pink, there wouldn't be much there at all.

So today, political columnist Joe Garofoli profiles an unknown Republican state senator from up north, Brian Dahle, with his usual slanted point of view. Garofoli writes:

"On crime, Dahle advocates reversing Proposition 47, the 2014 statewide initiative that reclassified certain theft and drug possession charges from felonies to misdemeanors, including shoplifting of items under $950. Studies have not shown a direct link between the measure and a spike in crime. Dahle disagreed."

Then, in a piece four inches away on page E1 from the Comical's new "data team" quoting Magnus Lofstrom, a policy director and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of Californiawe read:

"Larceny thefts are controversial from a data perspective — national crime victim surveys show only about a third of larceny victims report to the police, and many people argue that underreporting has increased even more during the pandemic. Larcenies also decreased almost everywhere, although in one wealthy neighborhood, Sea Cliff, they increased by 75% (the Excelsior neighborhood also saw larcenies increase significantly, by 29%).

Lofstrom concedes that it’s possible that underreporting of larceny theft has increased during the pandemic, particularly in a city like San Francisco where property crime is relatively high.

“It’s understandable, with an increase in the frequency of something, there’s a certain fatigue in reporting those incidents as well,” he said.

However, he noted that crime data has accurately captured other recent trends in larceny theft — for example, it showed a spike in reported thefts in the year following the passage of Proposition 47, a statewide initiative that reclassified certain theft and drug possession charges from felonies to misdemeanors, including shoplifting of items under $950."
----------------------
Oopsy

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Newsom-challenger-s-pitch-He-s-not-Newsom-16911776.php

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Crime-trends-SF-neighborhoods-16833205.php

[Spurinna]

Millbrae has cameras now. SSF just got them. Burlingame is the soft target without a moat and alligators. If you were a bad guy where would you lay siege?

PS- Two other things about out manny-pamby town: Only in our county do you have to still wear masks in city facilities and the library is still not fully opened. (Full time pay during theses last two years?)