After examining the San Francisco Police Department's 2013 annual report last year, SF Weekly busted the department for bungling its 2012 crime statistics. Then, The Examiner compared different sets of police data for last year and found the reports were inconsistent with each other: some showed a decrease in crime, others weren't as optimistic.
Alas, the department's crime statistics drew more scrutiny last week after Police Chief Greg Suhr tried to explain what appears to be an increase in property crime during a meeting with district supervisors.
Suhr's PowerPoint presentation showed a sudden increase of about 3,000 arrests from one year to the next. In 2013, officers made 1,957 arrests for property crimes, according to police data. Last year, the number shot up to 5,056, which Suhr attributed to an "anomaly" or potential "computer error."
"I can't understand how all of a sudden we hit 5,000, so we'll look at that," Suhr told the supervisors. "I don't know if that's accurate arrests including felonies and misdemeanors. That 2014 stat is probably going to be more consistent with 2,000 arrests."
That sounds more like it. But in the future, it'd be best if the police were sure of how many low-level criminals were arrested — or not — for smashing windows or taking joyrides in your new car.
Comments are closed.
