Safety

Downtown lost its previous police storefront due to lease costs.  As part of a project at 7th and Market, the police will receive a storefront.  The police will cover the operational costs, but the location is provided as a result of an agreement between CCDC and the project developer.  (Source: "Coffee with Nancy" meeting 2/2/07)

A recent Union Tribune article subtitled "Families settling in despite safety issues," focused on the dangers of living downtown with a family, particularly with respect to the rate of sex offenders.  While the rate is alarmingly high, it may be useful to further examine the implications.  The danger of the presence of sex offenders is its contribution to violent crime.  The total violent crime rates of downtown communities in 2004 (by which time the sex offender rate was already alarmingly high) were (from http://www.sandiego.gov/police/stats/ ):

All of the rates provided by the City of San Diego are on a "per 1,000 population" basis.  The thousands of conventioneers, employees, baseball fans, and nightlife partiers are not considered, even though they are victims and perpetrators of downtown crimes.  The City recognizes this statistical difficulty for areas with no population.  For example, the report states "Balboa Park has no population.  Crime rates cannot be calculated accurately."  Crimes occur in Balboa Park, but dividing by the number of residents yields an infinite crime rate.  The Gaslamp faces a similar statistical difficulty.  There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of "148" for Gaslamp, but the statistic does not mean 1 in 10 Gaslamp residents was the victim of a violent crime in 2004.  Visitors contribute to the statistics.  People visit the Gaslamp from communities with relatively low violent crime rates (e.g. La Jolla - 2.8 and Scripps Ranch - 1.3) and when they experience crime the Gaslamp statistic is affected rather than the statistics of their home communities.  To determine the level of danger, the relevant statistic is the crime rate per hour of presence in the community, ideally divided between outdoor time, public indoor time, and private indoor time.  The City of San Diego does not provide such statistics.  Accurate estimation would be difficult.  Considering employees (75,000) and visitors (>15,000?), residents (30,000) are less than a quarter of the public presence.  To make an apples to apples comparison with other communities for "public time" may require dividing the rates above by 4 for more populous downtown communities and by far more for nearly unpopulated communities such as Gaslamp. This would leave the rates on a par with most other communities, with an adjusted rate under 5 per 1,000. It is still safer to live in Scripps Ranch and never leave one's home, but the danger of enjoying Seaport Village is the same to a Scripps Ranch resident as a downtown resident, excluding the risks of getting there.

Although the emotional issues of experiencing violent crime cannot be compared with vehicle related injuries, comparing the rates may shed light on the level of risk.  The California Highway Patrol ( http://www.chp.ca.gov/switrs/ ) has statistics from 2004 for vehicle related injuries. The vehicle related injury rate for San Diego County was 5.5 per 1,000 population.  This is an average over the entire county (and again includes tourists).  Chance of injury is correlated with miles driven.  Getting downtown may be more dangerous than being downtown.  This may not answer the question "Is downtown safe," but it at least provides some perspective.