San Francisco’s public safety playbook is getting a major rewrite, and City Hall has picked a familiar face to run it. Yesterday, Mayor Daniel Lurie named Steven Betz the city’s public safety chief, bumping him up from assistant public safety chief to a role that coordinates the Police Department, Sheriff’s Office and other city agencies. Betz, who spent nearly a decade at the San Francisco Police Department as an attorney, will be charged with coordinating enforcement, officer recruitment, and behavioral health responses under the mayor’s public safety agenda, with day-to-day responsibility for efforts to shrink crime and stabilize neighborhoods.
Lurie announced the move in an interview and a city release, calling Betz a key leader in his push to make San Francisco safer and reiterating that his administration is targeting a 30 percent reduction in crime, according to ABC7. The hire is being framed as a way to centralize strategy across departments as City Hall doubles down on enforcement and recruitment.
City police data back up the mayor’s claim that crime has been trending down. The San Francisco Police Department reported an overall 25 percent decrease in crime in 2025, with notable drops in homicides, violent crime and property crime. The department credited targeted operations, seizures, and interagency work for the declines and said officers made thousands of drug-related arrests last year, per an SFPD release.
Betz's background and approach
Betz has served as the mayor’s assistant chief of public safety for roughly a year and previously worked in the SFPD legal division as an attorney, according to city documents. In the announcement, he said he was grateful and eager to step into this role, and stressed that public safety must be coordinated across city agencies, not handled in silos. The mayor’s release and related city filings describe Betz as a central point person for cross-agency planning, including policing and criminal justice coordination, a role that has already put him in regular contact with other offices on caseload and policy questions.
Where he'll focus first
Lurie said Betz will help drive the “Rebuilding the Ranks” staffing push while also working to disrupt open-air drug markets through the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, or DMACC. The DMACC has been made a permanent, multiagency unit under the administration and has been credited with thousands of arrests and major fentanyl seizures, work Lurie says Betz will expand and better tie to treatment and outreach efforts, as reported by KQED.
What to watch next
Early signs of whether this shakeup is working will include whether recruiting speeds up, whether DMACC extends its hours and reach, and whether cross-department coordination eases pressure on the courts and behavioral health services. Betz has already been in talks with the public defender’s office and the city controller on case workload questions, Mission Local reported, so his first weeks in the new role will test whether centralizing authority accelerates action or draws fresh scrutiny from supervisors and advocates.
The mayor’s office has not released a specific timeline for when Betz’s expanded duties formally take effect, but Lurie cast the appointment as an operational pivot meant to keep public safety momentum going. More details from City Hall and the mayor’s press office are expected in the coming days.
