T WO SURPRISES greet first-time visitors to California’s Bay Area. The first is that Silicon Valley is not a specific place but a booming mini-region, with no sign advertising when one has arrived or left. The second is that despite its beauty and wealth, San Francisco is one of America’s grittiest cities. In some neighbourhoods people openly use drugs, defecate on the street and flagrantly steal. It feels as though law enforcement has turned a blind eye to many lesser offences.

While violent crime has been on the decline, some non-violent crimes have been rising like one of the city’s hills (see chart). Among the nation’s 20 largest cities, San Francisco now has the highest rate of property crime, which includes things like theft, shoplifting and vandalism, per inhabitant. In 2017 there were around 30,000 incidents of theft from cars, triple the number in 2010. “It feels like an epidemic because it is an epidemic,” says Leif Dautch, a young prosecutor who is running for district attorney in San Francisco. Some of those who have been victims complain that they are not taken seriously by the justice system. According to one report from 2016, charges are filed in a mere 2% of vehicle burglaries in San Francisco.

Several factors seem to explain the rise in San Francisco’s property crime. One is inequality, with the wealth of well-heeled tech executives and visitors in plain sight of those with little money and fewer opportunities. The number of unsheltered homeless people in the city rose by 48% between 2010 and 2017. Policing is another. The presence of police officers plays a strong role in deterrence, says Magnus Lofstrom of the Public Policy Institute of California, a think-tank. But since the financial crisis and ensuing budget cuts the number of officers per 100,000 residents in San Francisco has declined by around 10%.

Kombucha and kumbaya

Broader statewide pressures to reduce the number of those incarcerated may also be a factor. California has been undertaking a radical (and welcome) experiment with reforming its criminal justice system and reducing its vast prison population. In 2014 Californians passed Proposition 47, which downgraded a variety of “non-serious, non-violent” crimes to misdemeanours instead of felonies. This measure has had no impact on violent crime, but it has coincided with an uptick in property crime.