As fans of The Wire* inevitably assure you, crime data, especially those from systems like Compstat, are infinitely, um, malleable. And yet, they are often the only method we have, especially given the San Francisco Police Department's notoriously inaccurate methods of data compilation. So how seriously should any of us take SFPD's claims this week that violent and property crimes are decreasing on the city? That's up to you, I guess.
As reported by the Ex, San Francisco's June Compstat numbers have been released. And the news, they say, is good, with assaults, robberies, rapes, burglaries, auto break-ins and larcenies "all down year to date and month to month." You can see June's full Compstat report from SFPD here (links to previous months' reports are here). Now let's look at some of the numbers!
- 24: Number of year-to-date homicides by June 30, 2015
- 26: Number of year-to-date homicides by June 30, 2016
- 209: 2015's reported rape and attempted rape total as of June 30
- 207: The number of rape and attempted rape cases reported as of June 30, 2016
- 1,911: The number of robbery reports as of June 30, 2015
- 1,506: The June 30, 2016 robbery report number
- 1,370: The total number of 2015's aggravated assaults reported as of June 30
- 1,310: 2016's aggravated assault report number as of June 30
- 21,606: The number of larceny thefts reported as of June 30, 2015
- 18,453: 2016's larceny theft report number as of June 30
- 3,564: 2015's reported car thefts as of June 30, 2015
- 2,606: 2016's car theft number as of June 30
- 15: The percent SFPD says crime is down, based on 31,605 total crime reports as of June 30, 2015 and 26,759 crime reports as of June 30, 2016
*How do know if someone's a fan of The Wire? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
