Judicial Watch has been keeping tabs on the sanctuary city problem for a while now, with particular attention being paid to San Francisco. This week they released the results of an investigation into the crime rates in the City by the Bay over the period of time since the locals began offering safe harbor to illegal aliens and telling ICE to go pound sand if they want any criminal aliens held over. Through a series of FOIA requests they assembled the data from 2011 (when the unofficial policies were first going into effect) through the advent of “official” sanctuary city status in 2013 and up to this year. The results should make the residents sleep much more soundly in their beds at night.

Judicial Watch announced today it obtained records from the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department revealing that violent crime in the Bay area has skyrocketed since 2011, with the number of arrests for murder up 55%, and the number of arrests for rapes up 370%. Judicial Watch uncovered the numbers through a July 9, 2015, California Public Records Act request that sought the number of arrests for violations of the following crimes between 2011 and 2015:

Penal Code 187 – first and second degree murder
Penal Code 240 – simply assault
Penal Code243 – battery
Penal Code 261 – rape

Here’s the breakdown in chart form. Keep in mind that the furthest left hand column contains the murder numbers and the furthest to the right is for rapes.

Is there a causal relationship between the advent of their sanctuary city status and the rise in violent crime? That’s hard to say. (We should specify “violent crime” here because the same report indicates that other, more minor forms of crime have actually gone down.) When Judicial Watch requested the numbers of arrests in these categories which dealt with the citizenship status of the suspects they were informed that the “information is not tracked by the Jail Management System.”

That’s certainly convenient. But absent such statistics it’s impossible to say how much of that increase came from illegal aliens. The main reason for this is that violent crime is up in most (though not all) major urban centers over the past two years. This includes more violence against police, but also record numbers of murders and assaults against citizens as well. Much of that is very likely associated with the SJW movement to demonize the cops, a more hesitant law enforcement presence and increased boldness by gangs. With that in mind, there could actually be a variety of factors contributing to the bloody problems being seen in San Francisco.

But it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to see the connection, is it? Much the same as you’ll see bolder gang members on the streets when the cops are pulling back from proactive policing, word gets around when a particular city isn’t going to hold illegals for ICE. And when you begin attracting an increasing transient population, crime goes up pretty much by default. No matter which of these factors is feeding into it the most, San Francisco has a problem which is largely of their own making. The amazing part is that the citizens show no signs of losing patience with their elected leaders and moving to switch them out for people who might actually try to shove this genie back in the bottle.