Crime always seems a top priority for politicians to discuss. "We've invested a record amount in public safety, violence interruption, and we've also done much work to make communities safer," said President Biden this month in North Carolina. Crime stories often play big in the news, and a growing number of Americans — 58% — say reducing crime should be a top priority for the president and Congress, reports the Pew Research Center. A Pew analysis of FBI data shows that, reported violent crimes, including robbery, assault and murder are down by 49% from 1993 to 2022. Property crimes are down 59%. "Of course, that's not to say that there isn't still a lot of violent crime, or that people aren't concerned about violent crime," said Pew's John Gramlich, Scripps News reports. "The decrease has even been bigger for property crime than it has been for violent crime — and these are the crimes like theft and larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft."
Why do many Americans believe it's going up? Researchers cite many reasons, including high-profile news stories, politicians who make crime a constant talking point on the campaign trail and even social media keeping track of what we read. "Algorithms are such that if you've clicked on a few crime stories, you may see more crime stories in your feed," said Gramlich. "And so that could be some reason why people think there's more crime." Researchers also caution that many crimes are not reflected in the numbers. Fewer than half of violent crimes are reported to police, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. "There's this whole universe of things that are happening that never even get brought to the police in the first place," Gramlich said.