Data scientist Lance Martin delved into 12 years of SFPD crime records to map San Francisco’s drug activity by neighborhood. Although the resulting charts get a little technical, some clear trends emerge: Crack, for example, has historically dominated the Tenderloin, while marijuana (literally) permeates the Haight.
Using a map of the city’s 10 police precincts as a blueprint, Martin found that the Northern and Mission districts have long been strongholds for crack; the Bayview, Southern, Central, and Ingleside districts have seen a mixed influx of crack, meth, and marijuana. Hallucinogenics weren't especially prevalent in any neighborhood, and both heroin and coke had fewer incidents than you might expect.
Martin also analyzed the data in temporal terms, finding a drop-off in crack-related incidents over the last 12 years. As he puts it, “crack’s spatial footprint is getting small” and fracturing between marijuana and meth. This chart shows the decline of crack-related incidents (along with a map of neighborhood distribution):
While Martin’s data doesn’t draw corollaries between crime incidents and broader shifts in city policing patterns, it’s worth noting that in 2011 Greg Suhr became chief of police and downsized the city’s narcotics unit. He also effected a larger philosophical change in how the city prosecuted drug offenders. According to the Examiner, drug-related arrests in San Francisco dropped 75 percent between 2008 and 2013. “Across the city, the push was to get the users into treatment, and treat [drugs] as a public health issue and not a criminal issue,” Suhr said.
Photo courtesy of adamjackson1984/Flickr
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