While national data shows crime is dropping, many people still feel unsafe in specific places and neighborhoods. Localized fear may be influenced by sensationalized media coverage of violent crimes, as well as persistently high levels of some types of crime in some locations. It can also be influenced by the presence of “crime drop deniers,” such as one of us who worked with a former police chief who regularly denied that crime rates had fallen in his precinct.
Regardless of whether they believe the crime drop is real or not, most Americans who consume news about local crime say they are concerned about it. In particular, those who are most likely to get their news from sources such as social media, locally focused apps and friends, family and neighbors are the least satisfied with their source of information, with about half saying they think the news exaggerates the amount of crime in their community and nearly as many saying it underplays the amount of crime in their community.
Property owners can help prevent crime incidents by gaining an understanding of the local criminal risks and developing and implementing security measures to mitigate these hazards. To assess the criminal risk at their facilities, property managers can obtain crime statistics reports from their city or neighborhood police department that are categorized by police borough and precinct. These reports typically include numeric crime scores and compare the number of different crime categories such as murder, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault and motor vehicle theft in a given area from year to year.
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