“The nature of this job is that we’re always looking back and the hindsight is 20-20,” Boudin said. “We know as a material fact that some people will be released and will commit bad crimes. There will always be instances where if we look back, we will make different decisions.

Unlike other parts of the country, the homicides do not arouse the anger and passions of recall advocates. The annual number of people killed in the city has remained in a range of 41 to 56 for the past seven years.

Instead, recall advocates describe a pervasive sense that the quality of life in San Francisco has deteriorated. Burglaries, especially in wealthier neighborhoods, have spiked during the pandemic. The city recorded 7,575 burglaries in 2020 and 7,217 last year, a sharp increase of more than 45% from 2019. Car burglaries, long a festering problem, were less common during the pandemic, but thieves shifted their targets from tourist areas to more residential neighborhoods, a shift that gave the issue more immediacy and urgency among voters.

Another problem is that Mr. Boudin and the gendarmerie, whose arrest rate for reported crimes is among the lowest in major cities, have a toxic relationship. During the 2019 campaign, the San Francisco Police Officers Association attacked Mr. Boudin calling him “the No. 1 choice of criminals and gang members”. Mr. Boudin’s supporters responded to his victory party with chants of epithets towards the union.

Officers were heard on body camera footage telling residents the district attorney is unwilling to prosecute the crimes. And although Mr Boudin has been criticized for not prosecuting drug trafficking more aggressively, he said police are making, on average, just two drug-trafficking arrests a day.

“The perception is good,” Boudin said. “Low-level drug dealers in San Francisco can reasonably expect nothing to happen to them. Because they won’t be caught. By the way, the same is true for auto burglaries, where 1% of reported auto burglaries result in an arrest, so the focus on my office or me or my policies is really misplaced.

Police Chief Bill Scott declined to answer questions about the department’s crime-solving rate. A spokesperson said in a statement that it was “not appropriate for him to engage in the type of political discussion that could sway the will of San Francisco voters.”