By now, the headline is familiar: Crime in San Francisco just keeps going down.

Except, for now, in one grisly category.

The first half of 2026 saw decreases in reported violent and property crimes, according to police data, building on historic declines both in San Francisco and the state and country more broadly.

Reported crimes of all kinds fell across the board, with property crimes – burglary, motor vehicle theft and larceny theft – seeing the largest declines. All were down roughly 25% from January to June this year compared to the same months last year. Violent crimes were more varied: Assaults were roughly the same as last year while robberies were down by about 20%.

But homicide numbers in San Francisco are still up compared to last year. Through the end of June, there were 16 homicides, according to police data, compared to 12 last year. (One killing that was counted as a homicide earlier this year was reclassified as accidental, police said.) Most of the homicides this year happened between January and March, police data show, but slowed by May and June, which together had just one reported killing.

Police data indicate that the rise has largely been in the police’s Southern District, which includes SoMa, the Embarcadero, Mission Bay and Treasure Island. Last year, the area had no reported homicides at this point in the year, but this year, it has had 6.

Still, police resisted the narrative that this amounted to a trend of rising violence – or of police inaction. Police Chief Derrick Lew said in a police commission meeting last week that the homicides in that area were unrelated acts of violence, making them harder to tackle with the kinds of violence prevention strategies that help reduce gang-related or retaliation killings.

“In terms of dealing with the Southern (District), it’s a little bit more difficult because they are more one-off in nature,” he said.

SFPD spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky added that three of the homicides have been classified as incidents of self-defense or defense of another and another as involuntary manslaughter (all still count as homicides in the data).

Finally, overall gun violence remains down, meaning that, as Lew previously explained, while fewer people are being shot, more are being shot and killed. 

Just 9 of the 16 killings so far this year were the result of a firearm, though data from previous years shows that such a gap between firearm homicides and total homicides is not unusual. Two of the homicides this year involved cars and two were the result of assault and battery, said Sernoffsky.

“While homicides have gone up, we are still near historic lows, and San Francisco remains one of the safest big cities in the nation,” Sernoffsky wrote in an email.

The small uptick in homicides is dwarfed by the broader decrease in crime. Police have pointed to their expanded use of surveillance technology – approved by voters through a measure promoted by former Mayor London Breed – as key to bringing down crime, particularly car break-ins, which historically have been a driver of San Francisco’s larceny theft numbers.

Police explained to the Chronicle that the technology has allowed them to track and arrest people they described as serial thieves responsible for a majority of the low-level crimes. Officers are able to “respond more efficiently and with more precision to crimes in progress,” said Sernoffsky, which he said leads to more arrests and deterrence of future crimes.

Even so, the crime declines are not unique to San Francisco. Last year, the entire state saw property crime hit its lowest level on record, according to recently released state data, as well as continued declines across both violent and property crime. Nationwide, homicides are also still declining so far this year, even after last year’s record lows.

Criminologists have explained that individual policy changes are just one factor among many that can impact crime trends. Changes like focused violence prevention efforts, sociological changes like young people spending more time at home, a decline in alcohol and substance abuse and people simply carrying less cash can also impact crime numbers at scale.

Reported crime numbers may also not completely correspond with residents’ feelings about public safety. Notably, the police data do not include reports of and arrests for drug use and dealing, which creates street-level disorder that can contribute to feelings of being unsafe. So far this year, arrests and citations for drug use have soared, while those for dealing have remained relatively flat.

Residents in the police’s Southern District in particular have also reported frustration with slow police response times, particularly when it comes to reports of low-level crimes, fueling concerns among some that the area is being used as a “containment zone.” As of this past May, residents of the Tenderloin, SoMa, Western Addition and Mission Bay had to wait twice as long for police to respond to calls, a previous Chronicle analysis found, a problem police blamed on high call volumes and staffing difficulties.

Subscribe

There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.

This article originally published at Crime in San Francisco is down – except homicides. Here’s what’s going on.