The following is a summary and article by AI based on a transcript of the video "Most Americans are wrong about crime". Due to the limitations of AI, please be careful to distinguish the correctness of the content.
00:04 | In the fall of 2022, |
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00:05 | we conducted 100 interviews. |
00:07 | New York, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia. |
00:10 | Hanna Love: she researches cities and public safety at the Brookings Institution. |
00:14 | What we overwhelmingly heard from folks was, |
00:16 | fear of crime in downtown business districts. |
00:19 | It was two years into the pandemic, |
00:21 | and in the middle of what felt like an explosion of American crime. |
00:25 | “Crime spiking on the streets of— |
00:27 | cities across the country grapple with crime— |
00:28 | crime has increased— |
00:29 | nationwide spike in violent crime— |
00:31 | violent crime in the US is rising— |
00:32 | homicides increased by 36%.” |
00:35 | But since then, the story has gotten a little more confusing. |
00:40 | Sometimes, the news says that crime is going down. |
00:44 | But other times... |
00:45 | “Crime is turning cities into war zones.” |
00:47 | “FBI is underreporting” |
00:49 | “Random acts of violence.” |
00:51 | Two thirds of Americans say crime in the US is a very or extremely serious problem. |
00:56 | And more than three quarters of us say there's more crime than a year ago. |
01:01 | So which is it? |
01:03 | Crime up or crime down? |
01:05 | And if it is down, what exactly do most Americans actually think is happening |
01:12 | with crime? |
01:12 | Crime. |
01:13 | Crime. |
01:13 | Crime, |
01:13 | crime, |
01:14 | Crime! |
01:14 | Crime. |
01:15 | Crime! Crime! |
01:16 | Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! |
01:20 | Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime! |
01:28 | So, my first question was, when the news says that crime has decreased, |
01:32 | where’s that info coming from? |
01:33 | I asked my colleague Abdallah. |
01:35 | My name is Abdallah Fayyad, I'm a policy correspondent at Vox. |
01:38 | The two areas that we get our crime statistics from are: |
01:42 | The FBI crime database.... |
01:44 | Law enforcement agencies around the country |
01:46 | voluntarily report their crime data. |
01:50 | The other is the National Crime Victimization Survey, |
01:52 | which is administered by the federal government, |
01:54 | and asks people directly whether or not they have been victims of a crime. |
01:58 | And both of these sources have their own limitations. |
02:00 | The survey usually talks to around a quarter of a million people, |
02:03 | which is both a lot of people, and only about 0.07% of the country. |
02:09 | And the FBI’s data is by nature only made up of crimes that get reported to police. |
02:14 | That's actually a big reason the FBI’s data on homicide |
02:17 | is one of the most widely studied and cited crime statistics — |
02:19 | because murder is almost always reported. |
02:24 | Now, right now, this chart ends in 2019. |
02:26 | Add 2020, and we see murder spike. |
02:29 | There is a reason why people feel like crime is going up — |
02:33 | because crime was going up. |
02:35 | But experts we talked to also recommended |
02:36 | putting that spike into context: of the way that things were before this. |
02:40 | What sociologists and criminologists |
02:41 | refer to as the great crime decline of the nineties. |
02:45 | And if you extend the chart in the other direction too, all the way to 2023, |
02:48 | that 2020 spike starts to look temporary. |
02:51 | It's now falling. |
02:52 | Not yet to where it was before the pandemic, but down. |
02:56 | So that's homicide. |
02:57 | But we can also look at the FBI's broader violent crime rate |
03:00 | over that same period of time, which also looks like it's falling. |
03:04 | The national property crime rate is a similar story. |
03:07 | This doesn't mean that all crime is going down everywhere. |
03:10 | But it does mean it's down in most places. |
03:14 | And yet. |
03:16 | 77% of us say the opposite is true. |
03:20 | So let's look closer at that. |
03:23 | The polling organization Gallup |
03:25 | has actually been asking Americans this question for about 35 years. |
03:28 | And their data on how people have answered it over that time |
03:31 | gives us a clue on how to interpret it. |
03:33 | Because it turns out, with the exception of like two years, |
03:36 | a majority of Americans have always said |
03:38 | that crime is higher than it was last year. |
03:41 | What we're seeing is a consistent fear about crime, |
03:45 | despite the fact that over the same period of time, |
03:48 | crime had been steadily on the decline. |
03:51 | And it's also worth taking a similar look at this chart from earlier, |
03:53 | where two thirds of Americans |
03:55 | say crime is a very or extremely serious problem in the US. |
03:58 | We can also chart that over time, |
04:00 | and see that it is also a pretty consistent belief. |
04:03 | But Gallup also asked another version of that question: |
04:06 | How serious a problem is crime in your area? |
04:10 | And only a small minority of Americans |
04:12 | typically say that crime where they live |
04:14 | is a very or extremely serious problem. |
04:17 | In other words... |
04:18 | The vast majority of Americans feel safe. |
04:21 | But there is this kind of abstract perception of, crime is out of control. |
04:25 | Crime is out of control. |
04:27 | But not where I am. |
04:31 | But... somewhere. |
04:33 | That “somewhere” was partly the subject of Hannah's research interviews, |
04:37 | many of which, remember, were about a specific fear in a specific place. |
04:41 | Fear of random acts of violence downtown. |
04:43 | Violent crime downtown. |
04:46 | In the parts of cities where people go to work. |
04:50 | Hannah and her team found that interesting, |
04:51 | because they also did a geographic analysis of where in cities crime was happening. |
04:57 | When we crunched the data, we found that there was a significant mismatch |
05:01 | in perception and reality of crime, |
05:02 | particularly as it pertains to where crime occurs. |
05:05 | In Chicago, for example, they found that |
05:06 | most of the increase in gun deaths in 2020 happened in disadvantaged |
05:10 | neighborhoods on the West, South and Southwest sides, |
05:13 | and barely at all in the dense downtown Loop area. |
05:16 | In New York, they found that |
05:18 | in the busiest parts of the city, |
05:19 | violent crime only increased about 2% from 2019 to 2022, |
05:22 | compared to an 8% increase in the rest of the city. |
05:26 | Downtowns were not driving any sort of citywide |
05:28 | increases in crime, even though people felt as though they were. |
05:31 | So even when violent crime was higher, it wasn't high |
05:34 | where people thought it was high. |
05:37 | But why did people think that? |
05:40 | Hold on to that thought. |
05:41 | Because, slight tone change... |
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06:23 | Alright. |
06:23 | So we were looking at this data, that showed us that |
06:25 | while people thought urban downtowns were really dangerous, they actually weren't. |
06:30 | Now, one reason people thought that might have been media coverage. |
06:34 | Crime continues to concentrate |
06:36 | within neighborhoods where it's always been bad. |
06:38 | But community or everyday gun violence often doesn't make the headlines |
06:42 | as much as something that would happen in a wealthier |
06:44 | or more tourist-based district. |
06:46 | “Two violent attacks in Times Square.” |
06:48 | “Two separate stabbings in Center City.” |
06:49 | “Four robberies that have happened downtown.” |
06:53 | But Hannah found that the people she talked to weren't just seeing stuff on TV. |
06:57 | They were also reacting to something they were seeing in person. |
07:01 | When we were doing our interviews, people often conflated crime |
07:05 | and unsheltered homelessness within the same breath. |
07:09 | One thing that has changed a bit since the pandemic |
07:11 | is in who you see on the streets in these downtown neighborhoods. |
07:16 | Before the pandemic, that would be overwhelmingly office workers. |
07:19 | Some tourists. |
07:19 | But there were also always some number of people |
07:22 | on the streets experiencing homelessness, addiction, mental health issues. |
07:26 | And then the pandemic emptied these places out. |
07:28 | And, as office workers and tourists slowly returned... |
07:31 | When there's less people crowding the streets, you're more likely |
07:34 | to see things like visible homelessness or visible drug use. |
07:38 | Today, more of us are back in offices, |
07:40 | but there are also, by some accounts, simply more |
07:43 | vulnerable people on the streets, partly due to the cutting of social services. |
07:46 | For example, by 2022, New York State had 20% |
07:49 | fewer psychiatric beds for people with severe mental illness |
07:52 | than it had in 2014. |
07:54 | And from 2019 to 2023, |
07:56 | the number of Americans experiencing unsheltered |
07:58 | homelessness went up by more than 20%. |
08:01 | I live in Boston, where over the past few years |
08:04 | there has been a homeless encampment |
08:07 | that does create this public perception |
08:10 | that there is not just disorder, |
08:12 | but chaos in how the city is running itself, |
08:16 | even if those encampments don't necessarily pose, |
08:20 | you know, an imminent threat or danger |
08:24 | to the residents that live in those areas. |
08:26 | Changes like these can make a city feel different. |
08:29 | Even less safe. |
08:32 | But all the data we have tells us that equating vulnerable people with crime |
08:36 | is not correct. |
08:38 | And here's the problem with that. |
08:41 | “If people don't feel safe, |
08:43 | then we're not accomplishing our task. |
08:45 | Stats don't matter if people don't believe they are in a safe environment.” |
08:49 | What we're currently seeing right now |
08:51 | is a lot of politicians and policymakers |
08:54 | crafting policy based on perception rather than evidence. |
08:57 | The governor of New York sent the National Guard |
09:00 | to patrol the New York City subway. |
09:02 | Crime on the subway had already been on the decline. |
09:05 | That's an explicit example right there of having perception-based policy |
09:10 | take a lot of municipal resources |
09:13 | and taxpayer money, without having any results, |
09:15 | because it's in the wrong place. |
09:17 | A lot of what we're seeing are counterproductive |
09:20 | policy solutions to crime in the long term. |
09:23 | Harsher penalties for petty crime, that include |
09:26 | eliminating eligibility for parole and probation. |
09:28 | In San Francisco, voters imposed |
09:32 | drug test requirements on welfare recipients. |
09:35 | Tough-on-crime bills that we kind of felt like |
09:38 | the country was moving away from over the last 10, 15 years, |
09:42 | and now are coming back in a very big way. |
09:48 | In a way this is an impossible story to tell. |
09:52 | Try telling the victim of an actual crime, |
09:54 | that crime is down. |
09:58 | Try telling it to a country seeing real crimes on TV. |
10:04 | Last time I’ll show you this chart. |
10:06 | And I want you to tell me which of the following two clips |
10:09 | fits it better. |
10:12 | “Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history. |
10:15 | Violent crime fell to one of its lowest levels in more than 50 years.” |
10:19 | “The defund-the-police Democrats |
10:21 | have turned our once-great cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime.” |
10:28 | In April 2024, |
10:30 | an ABC News poll found that voters |
10:31 | trust Donald Trump over Joe Biden on crime and safety |
10:34 | by a margin of eight percentage points. |
10:38 | I was honestly surprised it wasn't more than that. |
10:42 | Imagine that the homicide rate kept falling like this. |
10:45 | And that by 2025 or 2026, |
10:48 | you saw it get to its lowest in decades. |
10:57 | How many people would believe you? |