“Seventy-eight per cent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite.
As of 2024, violence, burglary and car crime have been declining for 30 years and by close to 90%, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – our best indicator of true crime levels. Unlike police data, the CSEW is not subject to variations in reporting and recording.
The drop in violence includes domestic violence and other violence against women.Anti-social behaviour has similarly declined. While increased fraud and computer misuse now make up half of crime, this mainly reflects how far the rates of other crimes have fallen.
All high-income countries have experienced similar trends, and there is scientific consensus that the decline in crime is a real phenomenon.
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The perception gap
So why is there such a gulf between public perception and the reality of crime trends?A regular YouGov poll asks respondents for their top three concerns from a broad set of issues. Concern about crime went from a low in 2016 (when people were more concerned with Brexit), quadrupled by 2019 and plummeted during the pandemic when people had other worries. But in the last year, the public’s concern about crime has risen again.
There are many possible explanations for this, of which the first is poor information. A study published in 1998 found that
“people who watch a lot of television or who read a lot of newspapers will be exposed to a steady diet of crime stories” that does not reflect official statistics.
The old news media adage “if it bleeds, it leads” reflects how violent news stories, including crime increases and serious crimes, capture public attention. Knife crime grabs headlines in the UK, but our shock at individual incidents is testament to their rarity and our relative success in controlling violence – many gun crimes do not make the news in the US.
Most recent terrorist attacks in the UK have featured knives (plus a thwarted Liverpool bomber), but there is little discussion of how this indicates that measures to restrict guns and bomb-making resources are effective.”
“[The United States experienced a spike in crime rates in 2020, during the pandemic.] But in 2023, crime in America looked very different.
"At some point in 2022 — at the end of 2022 or through 2023 — there was just a tipping point where violence started to fall and it just continued to fall,” said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and co-founder of AH Datalytics.
In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.
“T
he national picture shows that murder is falling. We have data from over 200 cities showing a 12.2% decline … in 2023 relative to 2022,” Asher said, citing his own analysis of public data. He found
instances of rape, robbery and aggravated assault were all down too.
Yet when you ask people about crime in the country, the perception is it’s getting a lot worse.
A Gallup poll released in November found 77% of Americans believed there was more crime in the country than the year before. And 63% felt there was either a “very” or “extremely” serious crime problem — the highest in the poll’s history going back to 2000.
So what’s going on?
What the cities are seeing
What you see depends a lot on what you’re looking at, according to Asher.
“There’s never been a news story that said, ‘There were no robberies yesterday, nobody really shoplifted at Walgreens,’”he said.
“
Especially with murder, there’s no doubt that it is falling at [a] really fast pace right now. And the only way that I find to discuss it with people is to talk about what the data says.” …
For cities like San Francisco, Baltimore and Minneapolis, there may be different factors at play [in crime declining]. And
in some instances, it comes as the number of police officers declines too.
Baltimore police are chronically short of their recruitment goal, and as of last September
had more than 750 vacant positions, according to a state audit report…
In Minneapolis, police staffing has plummeted. According to theStar Tribune,
there are about 560 active officers — down from nearly 900 in 2019. Mannix said
the 2020 police killing of George Floyd resulted in an unprecedented exodus from the department…
In Minneapolis, the city is putting more financial resources into nontraditional policing initiatives. The Department of Neighborhood Safety, which addresses violence through a public health lens, received $22 million in the 2024 budget.“
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