There’s a lot to parse here. But here’s a start: More police officers does not mean less crime – San Francisco and Los Angeles have a similar number of officers per 1000 – 2.57 vs 2.49 – and yet Los Angeles has half the number of crimes 31 per 1000 vs San Francisco’s 61.75.
And then there is the issue of how residents perceive the local police force and what impact that has on crime and trust. We are working on the use of force data, but force is consistently used disproportionately against Black men and recent testimony from a bias trainer underscores how far the SFPD has to go to treat all residents fairly. Those data charts will be coming.