I was reading the article from the Pew research on recent poll numbers, and was wondering if anyone knew if national crime stats have actually gone down? (Reflecting the impression that the poll indicates.) My guess is they haven’t. I’m lost in other projects at the moment, but would be curious if anyone has good sources or knowledge on this?
Those stats never tell the whole story.
Lots of cops just won’t take reports, and lots of victims won’t even try to report.
Especially these days when ICE camps out at court houses and police stations and just grabs anyone who’s not white.
2025 numbers won’t be out for months, but now more than ever they’re not gonna tell the whole story.
Like, to be optimistic let’s say an area increases the populations trust of the police, the numbers would show crime skyrocketing, because the percent of reported crime goes up even if actual crime goes down.
The National Crime Victimization Survey shows crime victimization rates being lower than 20 years ago, and far lower than 30 years ago. The rate is relatively steady from 2022 to 2024. This is similar, but not identical to what the FBI Uniform Crime Report shows. The rate of victims reporting crimes to the police increased a little over that time period.
I expect we’ll see that reflected in 2025’s numbers when they come out.
…
The entire point is that they’re absent from the numbers…
So obviously it wouldn’t be reflected in the numbers…
The National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted by the Census Bureau by interviewing randomly selected households. It gathers information on crimes not reported to the police, and the reporting rate.
It’s probable that people being afraid to talk to anyone who works for the government will affect its results, but it does have some hedges against that, such as enrolling households for a three year span.