by Randy Shaw on August 25, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Major United States cities have seen sharp drops in crime. San Francisco has posted steep reductions in all reported categories. Yet what about crimes in unreported categories? Like open air drug markets? Or illegal sidewalk drug use? Or fencing stolen goods?
These crimes hurt entire neighborhoods. They are the crimes San Franciscans complain about most. Yet they are not included in city statistics. No record is kept of the number of people using illegal drugs on sidewalks, selling illegal drugs, or fencing stolen goods.
Wouldn’t San Francisco benefit from using statistics to monitor these illegal activities? After all, excluding statistics on open air illegal drug use prevents San Francisco officials from assessing whether progress is being made. We know the number of those arrested for drug sales or use but that is a small percentage of those engaged in such actions.
Crime statistics are used for allocating resources. For example, when statistics showed a huge rise in car break ins during COVID, the SFPD responded with a special task force. The numbers soon went down dramatically.
Similarly, the city’s tabulation of “encampments”—capturing the number of tents in neighborhoods—spawned increased city resources devoted to removing tents on sidewalks. Unfortunately, people using drugs on sidewalks without tents escape the statistical count.
Wouldn’t there be more pressure on City Hall to shift police officers to close drug markets if statistics showed a rise in drug crimes? Absent statistics the question of whether drug activity is worsening becomes subjective.
For example, Mayor Lurie goes out to Sixth Street and reports improvement (the first two blocks of Sixth have improved during the shifts of Urban Alchemy, which the mayor dispatched to address the worsening drug crisis). But videos from JJ Smith on X show between 50-100 illegal drug users on the same patch of Sixth during Urban Alchemy’s absence. Smith also regularly posts videos of an open air drug market at Sixth and Howard, beyond Urban Alchemy’s turf.
Wouldn’t publicizing actual numbers of illegal drug users and sellers get all of us on the same page?
My colleague and I offered sidewalk drug user numbers for the Tenderloin in the month of July (See “The Tenderloin’s Sidewalk Drug Use: By the Numbers“). Many we shocked to learn that as many as 38 users were at the intersection of Jones and Ellis on July 31. Our report confirmed people’s perceptions that progress in closing Tenderloin drug markets has gone in reverse—but the city lacks statistics to prove this.
What if Drug Activity Stats Were Included?
There are hundreds if not thousands of drug crimes daily occurring in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market and Sixth Street. Yet the vast majority go unreported. That’s because people feel the police see what’s going on at drug hotsptos like Eddy and Hyde, Jones and Ellis, Sixth Street and 7th and Market. Why bother making a 311 call when the illegal drug use is so out in the open?
I don’t think mayors would ignore regular reports that showed drug use and drug dealing steeply rising. That may explain why these crimes have long not been included—-no pressure is placed on City Hall to respond to news stories about steeply rising drug activities because no public numbers exist.
Recall in The Wire how police departments became driven by CompStat? The SFPD uses CompStat to decide how to strategically deploy resources. Excluding drug activities from the statistical count leads to placing police resources where statistics are counted. Not toward closing drug markets.
How Will Public Drug User Statistics Be Gathered?
People who are robbed or burglarized call the police. But those seeing illegal drug activities typically do not. I think if people knew that the city were keeping statistical track of drug calls to 311 we would see a huge upsurge in such calls. People are eager to close open air drug markets. If the city announces statistics are being kept, gathering the numbers will not be a problem.
Mayor Lurie and Interim Chief Yep inherited the current system. Neither has anything to do with the exclusion of drug activities from city crime stats. This exclusion was built into a system before open air drug markets became out of control during COVID.
San Francisco’s crime statistics needs to be changed. I testified about this at the July Police Commission meeting and urged the body to do what they could do include drug activity stats. Between the mayor, Police Commission, SFPD and District Attorney’s office, someone should be able to get this change done.
Randy Shaw
<I>Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. </I>
