SFPD 96A.5 Victim and Suspect Demographic Dashboards

This webpage lets users explore this data beyond printed reports, through interactive dashboards. A dashboard is a tool that visualizes information in the form of charts, tables, and filters. There are two dashboards to choose from:

  • The first dashboard shows the number of Victims and Suspects for specified crimes by demographic group and police district.
  • The second dashboard shows the number of Victims and Suspects involved in Hate Crimes by bias type, bias, demographic group, and police district.

You can interact with this information by clicking on or hovering over the visuals in each dashboard. For more information, review the Additional Resources section at the bottom of the page.

Victim and Suspect Demographics of Specified Crimes

 

  • Data Notes and Sources: Victim and Suspect Demographics of Specified Crimes

    Data Notes and Sources: Victim and Suspect Demographics of Specified Crimes

    The following section provides relevant definitions, data sources, and data usage notes about the “96.5A Victim and Suspect Demographic” dashboard. Data is presented in this dashboard from January 1, 2013, onwards.

    Crime Category Classifications

    For purposes of Chapter 96A.5, Quarterly Crime Victim Data Reporting shall include the following crime categories:

    Assault, Aggravated Assault, Sexual Assault, First Degree Burglary, Second Degree Burglary (vehicle), Second Degree Burglary (commercial), Child Abuse incident, Elder Abuse incident, Theft, Grand Theft, Motor Vehicle Theft, Robbery, Battery, Vandalism, Domestic Violence incident, Manslaughter, and Murder. Each reported crime category will include information regarding the location (police district) of the crime, crime category, the victim/suspect, race/ethnicity, gender identity, and age group.

    Note: Multiple offense categories may apply to the same criminal incident.

    Crime Definitions

    For purposes of Chapter 96A, see San Francisco Administrative Code, Section 96A.1, Definitions.

    Demographics

    • The dashboard presents the total number of victims and suspects per quarter for each specified crime and the percentage of each of those totals broken down by Race or Ethnicity, Gender Identity, or Age Group.

    Data Demographic Categories:

    • Race or Ethnicity includes “American Indian or Alaskan Native”, “Asian or Pacific Islander”, “Black”, “Hispanic or Latino,” “Others”, “Unknown”, and “White”.

    • Gender Identity includes “Female”, “Male”, “Nonbinary”, “Others”, and “Unknown”.

    • Age Groups include “0-17”, “18 to 29”, “30 to 39”, “40 to 49”, “50 to 59”, “Over 60”, and “Unknown”.

Hate Crime Victims and Suspects by Demographic Groups

 

  • Data Notes and Sources: Hate Crime Victims and Suspects by Demographic Groups

    The following section provides relevant definitions, data sources, and data usage notes about the "96.5A Hate Crime Victim and Suspect Demographic" dashboard. Data is presented in this dashboard from January 1, 2022, onwards.

    Victim and Suspect Demographics

    • The dashboard shows the total number of victims and suspects involved in Hate Crimes, broken down by Race or Ethnicity. Gender Identity, or Age Group.

    Hate Crime Data

    • Hate Crimes are reported by the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to the California Department of Justice as mandated by California Penal Code 13023. The San Francisco Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit of the Special Investigations Division conducts an analysis of an incident report to determine if the incident falls under the definition of a “hate crime” as defined by California Penal Code 422.55 - Hate Crime Definition.
    • Hate crimes reported by law enforcement agencies are counted in a specific way. In each hate crime event, the DOJ counts the total number of victims, the total number of suspects, and the total number of criminal offenses in one event. The totals are classified and counted by type of bias motivation, type of crime, crime location, and type of victim.

    Hate Crime Definition

    • A hate crime is a crime against a person, group, or property motivated by the victim's real or perceived protected social group. An individual may be the victim of a hate crime if they have been targeted because of their actual or perceived: (1) disability, (2) gender, (3) nationality, (4) race or ethnicity, (5) religion, (6) sexual orientation, and (7) association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics. Hate crimes are serious crimes that may result in imprisonment or jail time.
    • A hate crime event may contain the occurrence of one or more criminal offenses committed against one or more victims by one or more suspects or perpetrators. Victims can have more than one offense committed against them.

    Hate Crime Data Demographic Categories

    • Race or Ethnicity includes “American Indian or Alaskan Native”, “Asian or Pacific Islander”, “Black”, “Hispanic or Latino,” “Others”, “Unknown”, and “White”.

    • Gender Identity includes “Female”, “Male”, “Nonbinary”, “Others”, and “Unknown”.

    • Age Groups include “0-17”, “18 to 29”, “30 to 39”, “40 to 49”, “50 to 59”, “Over 60”, and “Unknown”.

    Hate Crime Bias Type Categories

    Law Enforcement Agencies are required to classify hate crime incidents based on six bias type categories: (1) Race/Ethnicity/Ancestry, (2) Religion, (3) Sexual Orientation, (4) Disability, (5) Gender, and (6) Gender Identity. Categories only appear in the dashboard if there is at least one incident with that bias.

Background

San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Ordinance 40-20 amended the San Francisco Administrative Code Chapter 96A to include 96A.5, “Quarterly Crime Victim Data Reporting.” The ordinance mandated the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to provide quarterly reports regarding victim demographics pertaining to victims of Hate Crimes and other specified crimes. 

As part of our commitment to the community we serve, SFPD staff worked diligently and in close coordination with relevant SFPD bureaus to compile the crime victim information required for this report. 

It is important to note, however, that as cited by the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Legislative Analyst, SFPD would need to modify its current Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system if the proposed ordinance required tracking and reporting of additional crime data prior to the estimated National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) implementation date of March 2022. Based on an estimate of two full-time equivalent (FTE) consultants, the Department projected a minimum cost of approximately $960,000, with potential increases depending on the actual scope of work required to modify the current UCR system. (Source: Budget and Legislative Analyst Memo for the February 6, 2020, Government Audit and Oversight Committee Meeting, Feb. 3, 2020, https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8048232&GUID=24920980-EBBA-4951- 95B0-79C2FB993568) 

As no additional funding was allocated to allow for the extraction of this data from our primary records management system, Crime Data Warehouse (CDW), staff worked within the constraints of the current resources to aggregate the needed data from CDW as it stands. As a result, readers must be aware that SFPD data is not structured for this reporting method.

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the national repository for crime and law enforcement data. Data collected under the UCR Program is used to monitor crime level variations, evaluate policies, and regulate staffing levels. UCR reporting requires all law enforcement agencies to report the most severe crime under the Uniform Crime Reporting requirements, as stated by the FBI Summary Reporting System manual:

 “In cases where more than one offense occurs in an incident, only the highest ranking Part I offense is counted.” This “hierarchy rule” has led to the development of a system (born many decades ago), and migrated to the current state, structured for the purpose of counting the “highest ranking” offense.   As such, the number of victims of certain crimes is not mandated for reporting by UCR, nor is the age, ethnicity, gender, or location for any crime. 

For example: 

1. An individual can be a victim of multiple crime types in a single reported incident – that person may be counted in each crime type. 

2. In a single incident with multiple crimes and multiple victims, SFPD summary reporting cannot provide how many people were victim to any individual crime.  All victims in the incident show up in each crime.

As a result, for this report, the adopted methodology counts any victim or suspect associated with a reportable incident under each applicable mandated crime category, rather than only under the highest-ranking charge. This approach ensures that all relevant offenses and victimizations are represented, even when multiple crimes occur within a single incident. 

For example:

  1. An incident involving burglary, hate crime, and domestic violence charges would result in the individual being counted in all 3 mandated reporting categories - not just the highest-ranking offense. 

This information was previously presented in the under the Quarterly Activity and Data Report (QADR), as the Victim Data Demographic Report, published on the SFPD website. By transitioning the presentation of these data from a static quarterly paper report to a quarterly interactive set of dashboards, we hope to increase transparency, context, and understanding of these data. The data that informs these dashboards can be found at DataSF, our data transparency partner.

 

Additional Resources

This section contains resources for users to learn more about these topics. It includes related reports, policies, laws, and datasets. If you have questions about anything on this webpage, please reach out to the San Francisco Police Department at: [email protected].

Reports and Policies

Legislation

Data