(The Center Square) – San Francisco mayor London Breed announced reports of car break-ins have declined by 50% since September due to what she describes as expanded enforcement operations and prosecution. Due to California law, car break-ins are difficult for authorities to prosecute, as under current law, prosecutors must prove a vehicle was locked to convict a suspect of auto burglary, and a window being broken is not sufficient evidence. Newly proposed legislation from state Democrats would reform California law to allow forcible entry to be sufficient evidence for a conviction.
“Our police officers and our prosecutors have been doing incredible work tackling the difficult challenge of disrupting auto burglaries,” said Breed in a public statement. “We will remain focused and we will continue to give our officers the tools they need to do this work effectively across our entire city. We want San Francisco to be a safe city for residents and visitors, and we want people to know if they come here to break into cars, they will be arrested and prosecuted.”
San Francisco Police Department responded to the city’s escalating car break-ins by using bait cars, plainclothes officers, and aggressively prosecuting these crimes. Breed’s office notes “the high-volume crime is driven by a few organized rings” — as a result, when just one auto burglary crew was pulled off the street, the city experienced a 10% drop in break-ins.
While San Francisco is known for its pre-trial detention policies aimed at only holding suspects before trial largely in cases of violence or sexual assault, the district attorney’s office has been using its power to detain repeat offenders to reduce suspects’ ability to commit more crimes before their trials.
“Recognizing the severe impact that auto burglary as a crime has had on San Francisco for many years now, my office is committed to ensuring that there are real consequences for those who commit this crime,” said San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins in a public statement. “There must be consistent accountability for auto burglars to set a new tone in San Francisco that this conduct is not tolerated here.”
When asked about the state of San Francisco and car break-ins, San Francisco Republican Party chair John Dennis said that it seemed to him that while car break-ins are down, he’s concerned that what the mayor is doing may be too little, too late.
“Enforcement works. This fantasy that we were going to somehow use no- enforcement to reduce crime was laughable,” Dennis said to The Center Square. “This is what I call an election year conversion.
