Published Aug. 2, 2026at6:00am
After The Standard reported on San Francisco’s poor record of investigating sexual assault cases — in particular, how the Police Department cleared just 14% of its rape cases last year — residents were, understandably, upset.
“We’re talking 14% — just sitting with that number is revolting to me,” Commissioner Shokooh Miry said at a July 22 meeting of San Francisco’s Commission on the Status of Women.
“The only thing worse than the message that sends to survivors of sexual assault is the message it sends to rapists,” said Supervisor Matt Dorsey, “that the odds of ever being held accountable in San Francisco are remote.”
Miry, who spent years working at a rape crisis center, told the commission she had sat with women as nurses collected evidence from their bodies and promised them their rape kit would be safeguarded and processed with respect. “I now wonder if we were coercing them into giving DNA and evidence into a system that may not actually be as serious about preserving the integrity of that process,” she said.