Perceptions of higher crime don’t align with reality of less violence overall, report says
by Matt Delaney · The Washington TimesA new report found that the public’s perception of crime nationwide has remained the same for nearly 20 years, despite a sharp decline in all types of violent offenses during that period.
The Council on Criminal Justice said 69% of Americans believed crime was increasing across the country between 2005 and 2024, even as the total crime rate was nearly cut in half in that time frame.
The study showed that the crime rate fell from 3,973 per 100,000 people in 2005 to 2,119 per 100,000 people in 2024.
Americans also maintained a consistent fear of crime over an almost 60-year period, according to the report.
The Council on Criminal Justice said 35% of Americans were afraid to walk alone at night, the same percentage as in 1968.
The nonprofit think tank gathered its data by combing through years of Gallup surveys and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.
The Council on Criminal Justice said its findings contrast with a drastic reduction in crime in 2025 that may turn out to be one of the safest years in more than a century.
Killings nationwide have plummeted by 44% since their most recent peak in 2021. If the trend holds, the homicide rate could sink to 4 per 100,000 residents when the FBI releases its annual Crime in the Nation report this fall.
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The CCJ said that would be the lowest documented murder rate since 1900.
For 2024, the last full year of crime data the FBI has available, violent crime fell by almost 5% nationwide. Every major offense — including homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults and burglaries — all showed declines.
Researchers said a falling homicide rate in the country does convince Americans to perceive crime as less of a problem.
Yet personal experiences with crime make someone more likely to believe lawlessness is on the rise.
The study found that higher rates of household victimization, or whether a family member was a crime victim, weighed heavily into how people perceived the level of crime and their own fear of it.
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Tio Hardiman, the executive director of Violence Interrupters in Chicago, said that is why crime concerns in historically rougher neighborhoods can be overshadowed when officials rely on city-level statistics to tout public safety improvements.
For example, he said Chicago’s South Side has crime rates that run counter to the “stellar” drop in violence the city as a whole documented last year.
Those parts of town also have a culture of violence that affects how people perceive their own safety, he said, as illegal guns are prevalent and raise the stakes on simple disagreements.
And for people living outside of those areas, Mr. Hardiman said a neighborhood’s ugliest moments often find a way onto everyone’s social media feeds.
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“Every time you open up social media, you see a fight where you have 20 young men beating up one or two guys, or stomping people out or beating up women — you name it.” Mr. Hardiman said. “Social media plays one of the strongest roles ever when it comes down to the perceptions of violence.”
Witnessing an act of shoplifting or other forms of property crime led people to believe crime was up, the report said, regardless of local police statistics on how frequently those crimes occurred.
Further, residents of poorer neighborhoods or areas with higher youth populations had elevated fears of crime, the study said.
Conversely, those who were more optimistic about the economy and their own financial situation tended to believe crime was declining or stable.
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Men were more likely than women to believe that crime was holding steady or declining both locally and nationally, the report said. Men were also less likely to be fearful about walking alone at night.
The nonprofit said people with conservative political views were slightly more prone to believing crime was on the rise, but the overall effect of political ideologies on crime perceptions was limited.
Better approval ratings for the president and Congress correlated with people saying crime was either staying the same or was declining.
“Public concerns about crime do not always reflect changes in crime alone,” the report reads. “Crime concerns may also be shaped by broader social anxieties and economic conditions. Future research should continue to explore these relationships and what specific offenses the public are concerned about.”
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• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.