|
Sixty-nine percent. That’s the share of Americans who said, on average, that crime was rising every single year from 2005 to 2024. Twenty straight years of dread. Now the actual data: crime per 100,000 people fell from 3,973 to 2,119 over the same stretch. Cut. In. Half. You watched cable news. You read the local paper. You bolted the door at night. And the country was getting safer the whole time. The fear was real. The data was real. They just weren’t talking to each other.
|
|
Source: Council on Criminal Justice, “Perception and Reality: Understanding Crime Concerns in the United States,” May 2026; Gallup Social Survey; FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data, 2005–2024.
|
