Public Safety

Mayor Breed’s vision for a safer San Francisco is directly rooted in my experience growing up in a community impacted by violence. She experienced the difficulties when there is a lack of trust between law enforcement and community, and saw the loss of hope and opportunity from decades of disinvestment. In her time she worked to invest in law enforcement to ensure they had the tools necessary to keep people safe, create alternatives to policing to provide better outcomes and to keep police focused on addressing crime, strengthen community through investments, and hold people accountable when they violated the safety of the City.

In 2021, as vaccines became widely available, San Francisco emerged from the pandemic as a City facing a number of both very real public safety challenges and serious perceptions around crime. Fentanyl and the drug markets that arose during the pandemic had taken over certain neighborhoods. With a decline in tourism, home burglaries increased as criminals moved from breaking into cars to breaking into homes. Then as tourism returned in 2022, car break-ins started to rise again. Organized retail theft and shoplifting targeted retailers both large and small. Fencing operations on City streets created unsafe conditions in neighborhoods.

During her time, Mayor Breed took a series of actions to improve public safety in San Francisco. She launched strategic initiatives targeting San Francisco’s largest safety challenges, worked with partners at the local, state, and federal level to expand enforcement and accountability, and improved police staffing efforts and other support across our entire City. She overcame obstruction in City Hall to bring forward the use of new technology to help support law enforcement, including going to the ballot to seek voter approval for these changes. She appointed a new District Attorney and member to the Board of Supervisors whose priorities were public safety. She expanded alternatives to police, including launching a new Street Response Teams and dramatically expanding the City’s Street Ambassador programs to provide more eyes and ears on the streets.

As a result of these efforts San Francisco, by 2024, San Francisco had its lowest crime rates in over 20 years. Violent crime, property crime, and overall crime were down. Car Break-ins, long a major problem for San Francisco, dropped 55% year over year to levels not seen since before 2012. The City’s homicide rate dropped over 30%, hitting a new low not seen since 1960.

All of this was accomplished while the City continued to be a leader on reforms and investments in transformative policies to give people second chances. This includes making progress on implementing 272 police reforms that started in 2016 under the Obama Administration. It also includes landmark policies to remove financial burdens like waiving fines and fees for those exiting the criminal justice system and making calls from jail free.

Much of this work cannot be accomplished without coordinating with public safety partners outside of San Francisco, throughout Mayor Breed’s tenure, she has strengthened the working relationship with the state and federal to implement some of the strategies.

Leadership: Unprecedented Coordination and Accountability

Mayor Breed has also prioritized working with public safety partners and elevating leaders who are focused on delivering results on public safety in our communities. These are people who believe that cities must prioritize both accountability and opportunities for second chances and reform. Under her leadership, the public safety departments in San Francisco, which historically have not always aligned, came together to deliver coordinate like never before. This includes:

• Appointed a new District Attorney Brooke Jenkins who was focused on prosecuting crimes and being a partner to the San Francisco Police Department and state and federal law enforcement to change the conditions in our neighborhoods. The District Attorney is now helping to restore accountability and reform to our streets, prosecuting drug dealers, and helping to drive down break-ins and retail theft, as well as violent crime.
• Appointed District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey whose focus has been on public safety and addressing the city’s drug crisis.
• Worked with Governor Gavin Newsom to bring in the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard to target the drug markets.
• Worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring in the US Attorney’s Office and the Drug Enforcement Agency to increase enforcement against street level drug dealing and trafficking in the city.

Transformative Use of Technology

Despite being an innovation capital of the world, San Francisco had long fallen behind other cities in the use of public safety technology. This was exacerbated in 2019 when the Board of Supervisors passed a law further restricting the use of new technology. Mayor Breed worked to overcome these obstacles, first by passing a law in city hall giving police access to live cameras to disrupt drug markets and violent crime. Building on the success of this program, Mayor Breed went straight to the voters to give law enforcement access to new tools with the passage of Proposition E in 2024. These tools were critical to the dramatic drop in crime. By 2024 San Francisco had become a leader in the use of technology, with other cities seeking input on the city’s programs.

New Technology:

• Live Camera Access: Mayor Breed passed a law granting the SFPD access to live cameras to support investigations into drug dealing, retail theft, and violent crime.
• Automated License Plate Readers: Secured 400 automated license plate cameras at 100 intersections throughout the city. This technology aids in tracking and identifying vehicles involved in criminal activity.
• Use of Drones: The Public Safety Drone Program has delivered results by leading to arrests and criminal charges. Starting in 2024, SFPD began the use of field drones to support investigations and a Drones as First Responder program, where drones are deployed to 911 calls or other calls for service to quickly assess and gather information for responding officers.
• Use of Mobile Security Units: Deployment of camera trailers in locations around the city for round-the-clock security monitoring and crime deterrence.

Drug Market Intervention

The Mayor created DMACC, the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a multi-agency initiative made up of local, state, and federal public safety partners to shut down open-air drug markets. This includes working with the Drug Enforcement Agency, United States Attorney’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard.

As part of this work, SFPD and other law enforcement agencies, focused their efforts in the Tenderloin and South of Market Area to seize deadly drugs such as fentanyl. This multi-agency initiative was part of Mayor Breed’s commitment to enforcing laws to make our streets safer for residents, small businesses, and workers, offering help to people in crisis, and holding people accountable for the harm they do to others. The collective initiative has focused on addressing drug markets in three key areas: public drug use, open drug sales, and fencing of stolen goods in drug market areas.

Since its inception in late May 2023, this coordinated effort has led to great success, with SFPD seizing over 250 kilos (or over 600 pounds) of drugs and making over 3,500 arrests. This effort has brought unprecedented levels of coordination to tackle the drug markets regardless of neighborhood.

Targeted Public Safety Operations

• Launched targeted retail theft strategies, including the Organized Retail Crime Initiative to expand investigations and arrests, retail theft blitz operations, which have yielded hundreds of arrests, and the Safe Shopper program for the Holiday Season.
• Expanded auto burglary deterrence and enforcement, including the use of bait cars, plainclothes officers, and targeted patrols to disrupt auto break-ins.
• Passed a law to address street vending and illegal fencing and expanded enforcement efforts. This work includes banning street vending in areas like UN Plaza and the Mission and requiring permits for vendors to sell lawfully on our streets.
• Violent Crime Reduction Efforts that identifies individuals at the greatest risk of either engaging in gun violence or being the victims and connects them with ongoing help and resources to disrupt the cycle of violence.

Increasing Police staffing

San Francisco, like cities across the country, experienced a dramatic decrease in police staffing and interest in serving in law enforcement. Mayor Breed prioritized restoring police staffing through recruitment and retention efforts and expanding non-law enforcement responses to support neighborhoods and free up police officers to focus on enforcing the laws.

Mayor Breed has addressed police staffing shortages through a multi-pronged approach:

• Recruitment and Retention: She has funded expanded recruitment and retention efforts, including making starting salaries for SFPD the highest in the Bay Area.
• Streamlining Hiring: Mayor Breed led a multi-agency effort to automate the application process, hire back retired officers, bring on a contractor to help process background checks, and recruit officers from other jurisdictions. Because of that work, applications increased and processing time decreased.
• Supplemental Support: While building back staffing in the long-term, addressed the immediate needs by successfully passing a police overtime supplemental to keep officers on the street. Also, successfully secured a $17 million dollar state grant that helps fund police overtime to target retail theft operations and prosecute organized rings.
• Proposition E: She authored and passed Proposition E to reduce unnecessary paperwork for officers, allowing them to spend more time on the streets.
• Alternative Support: Mayor Breed has dramatically expanded City ambassador programs and doubled the retired police officer ambassador program to provide additional support in neighborhoods and free up officers for law enforcement duties.
• Non-Law Enforcement Responses: She has expanded the City’s non-law enforcement street response teams to handle mental health and addiction needs, allowing police to focus on crime.

By 2024, applications to SFPD had returned to 2018 levels and the City was seeing its largest police academy classes in years. Through her initiatives and policy reforms, Mayor Breed’s efforts around increased funding, improved working conditions, alternative support, and streamlined hiring to address the police staffing shortage in San Francisco.

Coordinated Street Response Programs and Police Alternatives

Mayor Breed has established San Francisco as a leader in the future of emergency response, including alternative first responders. Our city’s law enforcement officers have been and remain critical to the overall safety of San Francisco residents. For too long, San Francisco used Police as the default responders to a wide variety of issues, much more than just public safety or criminal calls for service. Mayor Breed’s police-alternative initiatives enhance public safety and allows the City to deliver better services and preserve police resources for crimes they are uniquely trained to handle in San Francisco

The Coordinated Street Response Program connects our specialized “crisis response” teams, which includes clinicians, specialized community paramedics, and peer counselors who provide compassionate care to those in need on the street

Mayor Breed created a citywide first responder team to respond to behavioral health crises happening in public spaces (the Street Crisis Response Team), and a special team to respond to nonviolent, non-urgent homelessness issues (Homeless Engagement Assistance Response Team), and is working to continue diverting calls away from SFPD to other, more appropriate responders.

• Street Crisis Response Team (SCRT): Created the Street Crisis Response Team to handle mental health and addiction crises. This team began taking 911 behavioral health calls in 2020, and soon grew to provide 24/7 coverage, helping people into services and allowing the police to focus on crime instead of being the first response to mental health and addiction. An SCRT response avoids an unnecessary encounter with police, provides an opportunity for psychiatric assessment, and can connect a person with long-term care, treatment, and housing. Since its launch in November 2020, SCRT has:
• Responded to over 49,000 911 and 311 calls for service
• Engaged with over 27,000 clients
• Freed up police time be responding to over 95% of 911 behavioral health calls
• Homelessness Engagement Assistance Response Team (HEART): launched a new alternative to law enforcement response for non-emergency calls involving people experiencing homelessness in need of a higher level of care. Since May 2023, HEART provides rapid, compassionate, and structured responses to targeted, non-medical, non-emergency 911 and 311 calls involving people who are experiencing homelessness. Historically, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has responded to all calls, but as part of the City’s work to divert certain types of 911 calls, HEART replaced certain law enforcement responses. In its first year, HEART had:
• Responded to over 80% of 911 or 311 calls from the public involving unhoused people and 70% of calls related to sidewalk and street encampments
• Addressed 13,875 requests for service
• Completed over 1,000 needs assessments
• Referred almost 400 individuals to an access point
• Placed over 140 individuals into an emergency shelter, night shelter, or waitlist
• Completed 168 public benefits applications
• Ambassadors: Dramatically expanded City ambassador programs, including Urban Alchemy ambassadors, and doubled the retired police officer ambassador program to provide additional support in neighborhoods and free up officers for law enforcement duties.

The Coordinated Street Response Program is a multi-agency effort to provide the most appropriate level of first responders with specialized training and resources. The goal is to offer compassionate care to people experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis on the streets, and to improve their long-term outcomes. Our Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC) provides a coordinated city response to unsheltered persons experiencing homelessness, individuals struggling with behavioral health needs, encampments, street cleanliness and related public safety issues to ensure San Francisco’s streets are healthy for everyone.

The Mayor’s Coordinated Street Response Program teams and responders work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week across our City to help people in crisis on the streets. They address the immediate emergency — overdose, a behavioral health crisis, or helping clear paths on sidewalks for ADA compliance, and connections treatment and shelter. But that isn’t the end of the story: There is coordinated follow up from behavioral health, substance addiction treatment, and housing programs to make critical connections to care so people can get off the streets and on the road to recovery.

Sending alternative responders also provides for better short- and long-term outcomes by sending specially trained professionals to respond to and assist people with certain situations that require de-escalation and connections to services.

NYU Study Applauds San Francisco’s Police Alternatives

On July 11, 2024, The Policing Project at New York University School of Law published an in-depth study on community safety and non-police alternative first response in San Francisco, finding that the City is taking “pathbreaking” steps in developing several alternative response models, and that those steps are positively changing the landscape of public safety. According to the study, “San Francisco’s Public Safety System: Lessons in First Response Policy Implementation”, the performance of both the SCRT and SORT teams, the NYU report finds, offers reason for cautious optimism: “The preliminary results are encouraging, as is the thoughtfulness with which the city is approaching its public safety challenges. We applaud the city’s efforts at the cutting edge of this field.”

“San Francisco has made real strides in developing alternative response programs to better support community safety,” said Jessica Gillooly, Senior Policing Fellow at the Policing Project and Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Suffolk University, and one of the report’s authors. “At the same time, the City faces complex social problems and these programs still have room for growth. Communities across the country seeking to implement their own alternative response programs should pay close attention to our findings from San Francisco.”

SFPD Call Diversion

In addition to the investment in and continuing work of street response teams, SFPD officers no longer need to serve as the default responders to all calls, allowing them to focus on criminal activities throughout the City.

Mayor Breed has diverted non-criminal, low-level calls for service to be handled by other City departments and responders. Mayor Breed worked to increase trust between the community and SFPD, including by reducing unnecessary contacts with law enforcement. The Mayor prioritized this policy focus beginning in 2020 with the establishment of the first of several alternative response teams.

Not only do alternatives to policing better serve the community, it also saved police resources, so they have more time to respond to public safety related calls for service, and also provides for better long-term results since appropriately trained responders are dispatched, either alone or with SFPD, and can engage clients per their needs, such as for treatment, shelter, or counseling.

• As of December 2024, there has been a reduction of at least 40,000 annualized calls, which used to take up SFPD time responding to
• Approximately 8.5% of all 911 calls have been diverted to non-SFPD primary responders including SCRT, HEART, and other existing City Departments

Categories of calls that have been diverted away from an SFPD response included:

• Dogs/animal noise complaints
• Graffiti
• Illegal dumping
• Abandoned vehicles
• Small contained fires
• Some wellbeing/mental health checks
• Mental/behavioral crisis
• Calls related to homelessness

These initiatives aim to address public safety concerns using a combination of community-based approaches, mental health resources, and alternative response teams, complementing the efforts of the police department.

Fighting Anti-API Violence

In response to a nationwide rise in anti-Asian hate and violence post pandemic, Mayor Breed brought together law enforcement and community to make safety improvements in neighborhoods across San Francisco. In addition to increasing police deployments, the Mayor invested in community programs like senior escort services and victim services.

These efforts include:

• Created a first-of-its-kind multi-racial safety team for neighborhood commercial corridors, pairing up victim services staff from CYC + violence interrupters from the Street Violence Interruption Project (SVIP), ensuring that there would be Asian and Black staff working together to build relationships with neighborhood small businesses, workers, residents
• Invested in Self Help for the Elderly and Southeast Asian Development Center’s Senior Escort Program citywide and CYC’s wraparound victim services since 2020.
• Create an AAPI Liaison Unit within the SFPD that will facilitate translation support to patrol officers, various investigative units, and the community. SFPD also launched a “texting-in-language” feature for non-emergencies and tips so people can text in any language and someone who can speak that language will respond as soon as possible.
• Created the Community Liaison Unit (CLU) within SFPD, in partnership with command staff and community stakeholders. As soon as CLU encounters a victim who needs services and also needs language assistance, CLU does a warm connect between the victim and the cbo’s we’ve funded to provide wraparound victim services in Asian languages: CYC, Self Help for the Elderly, ram
• Funded online banking trainings for limited English proficient seniors so that we could help prevent them from being targeted in the first place — it is well-known that seniors often receive social security checks and other public benefits monthly, and then carry cash back and forth from the bank — by helping them to use online banking, they avoid having to do this and help keep themselves safer as a result.
• Increased support for culturally sensitive victims services programs for victims of violence and hate crimes through the Office of Victims and Witness Rights.
• Tripled the number of trauma-informed recovery clinicians fluent in Cantonese in partnership with RAMS and UCSF’s Trauma Recovery Center

Progress on Police Reform

Under the leadership of Mayor Breed and Police Chief Bill Scott, SFPD had reached a historic milestone in its multi-year police reform effort in submitting the final 27 responses to the 272 reform recommendations from the United States and California Departments of Justice. Mayor Breed, then-Board President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was part of this effort at its inception in 2016, where the City undertook a voluntary effort to stand as a national model for 21st Century Policing, proving that reform and public safety work together by building trust with communities. Below are a few highlights as a result of the reform:

• Increased diversity in hiring and recruitment: Black, Asian, Hispanic, and American Indian recruits entering the academy increased from 52% in 2016 to 81% in 2023.
• Reduction in Officer Involved Shootings: Officer-involved shootings have decreased by 50% in the 7 years since the beginning of the Department of Justice review compared with the 7 years leading up to it.
• Enhanced De-escalation Training: The SFPD expanded de-escalation training for officers, including adopting Critical Mindset training, emphasizing planning and coordination to resolve potentially high-risk situations safely. Around 99% of officers are trained on the 10-hour Crisis Intervention Training course.
• Expanding Community Engagement: The SFPD launched the Community Engagement Division and increased partnerships with community leaders across the city, including in neighborhoods with residents that have had long-standing distrust of law enforcement.
• Racial Equity: The SFPD generated the Department’s first Racial Equity Action Plan and launched the Department’s Office of Racial Equity. The SFPD is working with academic partners to better understand the causes of disparities in contacts with the public.

Second Chance, Creating Opportunities and Pathway for Successes

San Francisco has always been a city that believes in second chances and creating opportunities. We invest in communities and young people to give them the opportunities to succeed and to ensure everyone in this city has a choice of finding a good paying, rewarding employment. These include:

• Eliminating various fines and fees in our jails and criminal justice system that overly burdened people trying to improve their lives after paying their debt to society.
• Funded job training programs like the City EMT program, which is designed to address the issues of poverty, violence, and unemployment by training at-risk young adults, aged 18–24 years old, in an expanded Emergency Medical Technician curriculum program.
• Strengthened the CityBuild Academy program that trains construction workers, including increasing the paid stipend while people go through training and launching the Women and Families First Initiative, the first of its kind that supported expanding women in construction.
• Funded employment pipelines in the Dreamkeeper Initiative, through workforce training programs that prepare participants to be immediately competitive in the job market.
• Launched and sustained Opportunities for All, a city-led program that includes paid internships, mentorship, and pathways to employment, including job readiness, career training, and apprenticeship for participants ages 13 to 24.

Supporting victims

During her time in office, Mayor Breed has supported survivors of violence by investing in community-based and community-led programs and organizations such as the Street Violence Intervention Program and the Community Youth Center of San Francisco that directly serve victims of crimes. She also created a Community Liaison Unit within the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to respond to hate crimes, has dedicated funds to implement wraparound victim services and trauma-recovery therapy for limited English speakers, and consistently supported a portfolio of gender-based violence grants. These grants subsidize legal and social services, case management, emergency shelter, and transitional housing for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors. Mayor Breed also supported and created the Office of Victim and Witness Rights, followed by approval of San Franciscans.