San Francisco Proves Tough on Crime Works

Three years ago San Francisco voters fired their soft-on-crime District Attorney and elected a replacement who promised to start prosecuting criminals, and particularly the so-called “low level criminals” like thieves, drug dealers and burglars. The new DA, Brooke Jenkins, partnered with the police to go after criminals breaking into cars, smash-and-grab retail thieves and even protesters blocking streets and bridges. The result, crime has dropped dramatically as reported by Danielle Echeverria of the San Francisco Chronicle. The latest numbers from SFPD show significant declines in both property crime and violent crime outpacing the nation as a whole. Violent crime fell by 14% between 2023 and 2024. Property crime fell by 31% over the same period. This is happening in what used to be the most tolerant city in the U.S.

One takeaway is that aggressive, consistent law enforcement with real consequences for criminals works. Another is that punishing offenders who commit what progressives call “low level” crimes like theft, vandalism and drug dealing, has a positive impact on all types of crime. The “broken windows” approach is based on this reality. To address the city’s 31,000 vehicle burglaries in August of 2023, a police task force began targeting the most crime-ridden districts using drones and bait cars to catch the thieves which District Attorney Jenkins would aggressively prosecute. Last February one thief with multiple priors was convicted and faced a sentence of eight years in prison. Unlike her predecessor, progressive Chesa Boudin, Jenkins is also throwing the book at violent offenders and it’s clearly paying off.

The city’s voters were so angry about crime that last November they replaced politically-correct, progressive Mayor London Breed with a white businessman who pledged to make San Francisco safe again. Apparently Lincoln was right . . . .you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.