Highlights
Public safety is the highest priority for people moving. Fear of crime is at record levels.
Crime was a top concern during the midterm elections.
So contradictions in crime data saying that violence is decreasing while others say it’s increasing seem irrelevant.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Retired federal senior spokesperson. Thirty-five years of directing award-winning public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Certificate of Advanced Study-Johns Hopkins University. Former police officer. Aspiring drummer.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization” available at Amazon and additional booksellers.
Quotes
All quotes are edited for brevity
Article
I spoke to a person regarding national crime statistics who told me that crime data was irrelevant. The most important indicator of crime in the United States was fear of crime.
Pundits will forever tell you that fear of crime is overblown. Overall crime has decreased throughout recent decades (true up to 2015) and Americans expressing fear of crime were simply misinformed or misguided by media reports.
National reports on crime are often in disagreement. Whether crime and violence are increasing or decreasing often depends on the source you use.
Yet many feel that criticism of Americans as to how they feel about crime is insulting. Fear drives our decisions as to where to live or what businesses to support or places to invest. Concern about crime can destroy commercial establishments or sections of cities or an entire city. It has a major impact on state and national elections
Only 35% of respondents in an NPR/Marist survey conducted in March said President Biden was doing a good job when it came to handling crime — a lower mark than his already low approval rating. He earned similarly poor marks from people of color and those under 45, voters he needs to motivate if he wants to win reelection.
Low crime rates jumped from the second-most desirable trait in 2022 to the most desirable in 2023. Public safety has become the highest priority as violence on the news cycle convinces Americans life is becoming more dangerous. Although gun violence and motor vehicle thefts have indeed soared since the pandemic, homicides and the overall crime rate are actually falling.
In the past year, Americans have become less satisfied with where they live, according to a new survey conducted by Home Bay and Allied Van Lines. In 2023, just 63% of Americans say they like where they live, down from 80% in 2022.
Bloomberg’s twelve years in office coincided with an urban renaissance, not just in New York, but in cities across the United States. Downtowns flourished as crime fell to its lowest rate in decades – a far cry from where many American cities find themselves today.
Rocca asked, “Compared to early 2020, before the pandemic, most American cities by most measures are still worse off,” Rocca said. “What is the number one thing that has to happen for cities, in general, in the U.S. to turn it around?”
“Well, the first thing, you got to stop crime and get guns off the streets,” Bloomberg replied. “There’s no secrets here to this stuff. All these problems are problems that we know how to solve, but you got to have the desire to do so.”
This line of argument was a particularly vivid example of a familiar trope in US transportation discussions: the crime train. The underlying narrative? Rail-based public transit originating in cities will undoubtedly export urban ills to adjoining regions. It’s a variant of the broader unease with US public transportation itself, and its perceived associations with poverty and dysfunction. But crime train adherents are particularly fixated on the mode in question and the notion that rail transit is both risky for riders and an effective means of shuttling lawbreakers around.
At the end of January, Capitol Hill vegan restaurant Life on Mars started cataloging on Instagram the woes of existing as a small business in Seattle. A random passerby had thrown a rock through their window. Someone lit a fire on their patio. Someone else threw a rock through the restaurant’s door. There was graffiti, drug use, and even stolen plants.
“We have to consider what we are even doing here anymore,” the restaurant posted on Jan 25. “Good times.”
Mainstream Data on Fear Of Crime
The Rasmussen Reports group showed that 61% of their respondents believe that violent crime in America is getting worse. And polling by Gallup showed that violent crime is a concern among 80% of Americans, including 53% who worry a “great deal” and 27% who are concerned to a “fair” degree. The Rasmussen survey was released on April 8, 2022, the Gallup poll was made public on April 7.
National and local perceptions/fear about crime are at or near their peak levels for the past 25 years. Americans are more likely to perceive crime in the U.S. as having increased over the prior year than they have been at any point since 1993, Gallup.
Most Americans are impacted by street or computer crimes yearly. Fifty-one percent, up from 38% in 2020, say there is more crime in their area than a year ago, Gallup.
Crime is a national concern, Pew. The economy, health care, and COVID led the categories.
Americans’ concerns over crime have hit a four-year high, according to a Washington Post- ABC News poll. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said that crime is an “extremely” or “very serious” problem in the U.S., the highest level since 2017. On a local level, worries about crime are also growing, though lower than the national concern, The Hill (Newspaper Of Congress).
Americans are more likely to perceive crime in the U.S. as having increased over the prior year (78%) than they have been at any point since 1993, Gallup.
Gallup presents a multi-year overview of perceptions of crime, see Gallup.
After the riots and protests of 2020, a majority of Americans say they are concerned about rising crime in U.S. cities, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill. Seventy-seven percent of respondents say they are concerned that crime is rising in the nation’s cities, while 46 percent of respondents said they were concerned about rising crime in their own communities, The Hill.
Mass Shootings: In the wake of two August mass shootings that claimed the lives of 31 people in one weekend, Americans are more worried about themselves or a family member being the victim of a mass shooting than they were after two previous massacres. Currently, 48% of U.S. adults are “very” or “somewhat” worried, compared with 39% in 2017 after one gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas and 38% in 2015 after a San Bernardino shooter left 14 dead, Gallup.
Worry About Crime: 75 percent of Americans worry about crime and violence (April 2019), Gallup.
Fear of crime was the top national concern in 2018. Per Gallup, 75 percent of Americans worry about crime and violence (down from 78 percent in March 2018), which was the same as health care, the top concern, Fear of Crime. Gallup asked those polled if they worried about topics a great deal or a fair amount. Crime was ranked the same as health care using a combined score.
Half of Americans believe crime is very or extremely serious. In 2018, just under half (49%) of Americans believe the problem of crime in the United States is very or extremely serious — a 10-percentage-point drop and the first time the number has been below 50% since 2005, Serious Crime Concerns.
88 Percent Say Violent Crime Is A Problem: Per Pew, 54 percent say that violent crime is a very big problem while 34 percent say it’s a moderately big problem. Pew.
Crime A National Concern: As crime rates continue to soar across the country, a new Fox Business survey finds almost 8 in 10 registered voters (77 percent) are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the surge. The only issue more pressing is inflation (84 percent “extremely” or “very” concerned), Fox Business.
Fear Of Crime Among Groups
42% Of Black Adults Say Crime Is A Major Problem. Some 43% of urban residents now say crime is a major problem in their community, compared with 35% in 2018. Needless to say, Pew addressed “major” problems. If we included “problems” with crime and violence, the percentage would be much higher, Pew.
Latinos say crime and gun violence is their number two concern — behind COVID-19 and before immigration, social justice or voting rights — in our inaugural Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll in partnership with Noticias Telemundo, Axios
About eight in ten Asian Americans say violence against them is increasing in the U.S., an April survey found.
Crime As A National Priority Among Voters
There is a multitude of national polls stating that crime and violence are top concerns for voters in 2022. See Pew for an example.
Conclusions
I live in the West Virginia mountains near the Maryland line and Florida’s Space Coast. Both places are seeing a large influx of new property owners.
I asked newcomers in both locations what brought them here. For Florida’s Space Coast, it’s the influx of new jobs. For West Virginia’s new residents, it seems to be a frustration with urban life and crime.
Per Bloomberg, Rural America is booming, but the population growth that’s boosting local economies is also putting a strain on everything from schools to housing and roads. The influx — which started during the pandemic — has continued even as Covid restrictions have lifted. The latest government data released just last month points to a second year of increases in 2022 after years of declines.
So concern with urban living seems to transcend pandemic fears. Per the Allied van Lines survey, the number one reason that people are moving is crime and safety.
The contradictions in crime data with reputable sources saying that violence is decreasing while others say it’s increasing seem irrelevant.
The bottom line is that for many Americans, concern about crime controls many of our decisions with important repercussions for cities-metro areas, states, and the overall economy. Yet many say that Americans are simply misinformed.
“Tell that to the people who are scared to go shopping at Lenox Mall in Buckhead — they are not making that up,” he said. “And having some economist or political analyst downplay their fear is a good way to whistle past the graveyard for Democratic candidates,” Los Angeles Times.
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