Crime is going down, fear is going up

[JohnH]

yes. and.
DOGE recently reported SOCIAL SECURITY receives daily fraudulent calls attempting to steal people’s SSNs, or get fraudulent numbers. Along with their many revelations of waste+fraud, on every level.

i’ve met IRL people over decades who openly admit, “they’re doing it, everyone’s doing it, why shouldn’t i”?

I had to deal with this were someone randomly chose my SSN and made up an address and reported "working", which messed things up when I filed my taxes. Of course, it was my problem to fix it. I found out when the IRS sent me a nasty letter accusing me of "underreporting income".

This is yet another reason we do not need 10+ million illegal aliens in the country who simply ignore our laws and engage in fraud like this. Legally, they can't work in the United States, and they do not have a valid SSN to report when they work for an employer. They are breaking the law if they do so. Practically, they don't care, and will simple file fraudulent information and seem to do so without consequences.

[Robert]

Why do you think fear is going up?

I do not see fear going up. I see people addressing issues that cause crime in their areas. Just because crime is going down doesn't mean it does not affect people.

I was robbed months ago but never contacted the Police to do an investigation. I knew it was fruitless. I had about $2000-$3000 of things stolen out of my garage and shed. An officer came by and we informed them in case they saw something, but no investigation was done and I am sure it never made it to any statistics.

It was not violent, bust still a crime. As Police departments get defunded, they will address less crime. Cities are much worse with petty crime. I do not think much of that is getting to statistics.

[JohnH]

Why do you think fear is going up?

I do not see fear going up. I see people addressing issues that cause crime in their areas. Just because crime is going down doesn't mean it does not affect people.

I was robbed months ago but never contacted the Police to do an investigation. I knew it was fruitless. I had about $2000-$3000 of things stolen out of my garage and shed. An officer came by and we informed them in case they saw something, but no investigation was done and I am sure it never made it to any statistics.

It was not violent, bust still a crime. As Police departments get defunded, they will address less crime. Cities are much worse with petty crime. I do not think much of that is getting to statistics.

Indeed. It is not really proper to call it "fear" when I lock my car doors at certain shopping centers simply because I know it's far more likely for someone to try to break into the car there. It is not "fear" to avoid going certain places at all because I know crime is so common there, and that the police generally don't do anything about it.

Trying to do tricks with statistics to claim "crime is going down" to people who have been victims of crime simply teaches those people not to trust official statistics. Perhaps that is a good lesson for them to learn.

[temporal1]

Robert:
I was robbed months ago but never contacted the Police to do an investigation.

it’s happened to us/me numbers of times over decades. different states. the most recent time was after my husband died. several thefts. i didn’t think of reporting them. lots was stolen. esp my husband’s tools, some belonged to his father. sad. probably to buy drugs.

[JohnH]

Robert:
I was robbed months ago but never contacted the Police to do an investigation.

it’s happened to us/me numbers of times over decades. different states. the most recent time was after my husband died. several thefts. i didn’t think of reporting them. lots was stolen. esp my husband’s tools, some belonged to his father. sad. probably to buy drugs.

And then people tell us, "What are you complaining about? Crime is down!"

[R7ehr]

If someone suffers from crime firsthand, it’s hard to convince them that crime is headed in the right direction.
Same if it happens to their immediate family.
But more than that, with social media, we can become aware immediately if crime happens in our neighborhood. So that better awareness impacts us.

Years ago, we didn’t have retail chains locking up their shelves. They aren’t doing it because crime is going down. And it doesn’t stay in the big cities. Now we see Home Depot locking up their wire rolls in small 35,000 towns. Is it necessary, or is corporate calling the shots? I don’t know. Even the small Ace Hardware in a 8,000 person town has locks on certain display hooks. But every time people have to get an employee to unlock and open a shelf for them, it reinforces the idea that they are suffering because of increased crime rates.

When people are asked if crime is going up or down, is the question being asked the same as the one being answered?
If the questioner is wanting to know about the last 5 years, what happens if the response is a comparison answering now compared with their childhood?

[Robert]

If someone suffers from crime firsthand, it’s hard to convince them that crime is headed in the right direction.

I am not afraid of getting robbed again, I am aware and cautious now.

[Bootstrap]

This is not the correct way to do this analysis.

Feel free to provide a better analysis and explain why your analysis is better.

Boot, this is just basic statistics. It doesn't make sense at all to look for any kind of "correlation" across a gigantic population sample, particularly when you could just look at the effect on crime rates when migrants move in to a community.

Let's look at one: Hazleton, PA.

In 2000, the Hispanic population was less than 5%; in 2010, the Hispanic population was over 37%, and by 2020 was 63%. (Source: U.S. Census.) I am using the Hispanic population as a proxy for migration; there are plenty of other sources indicating this was primarily due to immigration.

The overall population was relatively stable (around 25k-27k total).

In 2000, the FBI's reported violent crime rate was below 150. By 2018 it was over 450.

This is in sharp contrast to your reported overall drop in crime rates from 2000 to 2020.

Thanks for providing a concrete example. I appreciate that—it’s always helpful to ground things in real places and stories.

That said, from a basic statistics perspective, larger sample sizes and broader trends are usually better for seeing the big picture. That’s what I was aiming for earlier. Hazleton may have seen crime rise alongside immigration, but dozens of other cities (like El Paso, San Diego, and Miami) saw major immigrant population growth while crime fell. And there are cities where crime rose without a corresponding increase in immigration—like Portland, New Orleans, or Albuquerque. So I’m not sure a single example tells us more than the national trend.

From 1990 to 2020, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population doubled. During the same period, violent crime dropped by more than half. That doesn’t prove immigrants reduce crime, but it does challenge the idea that they cause it.

Whatever the causes are, violent crime really has gone down. At the same time, a lot of people feel like it’s going up. That gap between perception and reality seems important to me. A lot of people seem to feel like we’re in an emergency state, with unprecedented levels of violent crime—but the data just doesn’t show that.

I think it’s worth asking why we feel more afraid, even when things are getting statistically safer. That might tell us just as much about our society as the crime data itself.

[R7ehr]

Crime isn't become commonplace? We don’t like it, but it’s become routine and boring. We have elected a criminal to the Presidency. We as a society are sort of moving from anger to resignation that crimes don’t matter.

[temporal1]

Crime isn't become commonplace? We don’t like it, but it’s become routine and boring. We have elected a criminal to the Presidency. We as a society are sort of moving from anger to resignation that crimes don’t matter.

i couldn’t agree more.