Hacker News Reader

Comment by monoideism | Hacker News Reader

> from widespread fear of crime

But crime, particularly violent crime, is at or near historic lows.

Yes, but this is fear of crime. Over the past few decades, in general more Americans have believed crime is increasing than decreasing [1].

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx

I only went halfway down the page, but haven't yet stumbled upon the trend you're referring to?

The first few questions specifically asking about the topic show the opposite of what you claim.

The section I’m referring to is “Is there more crime in the U.S. than there was a year ago, or less?”.

Very interesting. The big swings in opinion don't seem timed to line up with national violent crime statistics. Maybe they correlate better with economic boom times and recessions. Or maybe perceptions are more weighted toward property crimes that have less reliable national statistics. Look at that dizzying drop in "more crime" responses between 1997 and 1998. The "more crime" responses stay low until 2002.

Or maybe there's just a lot of noise in the responses. "More crime" gained 10 points between 2004 and 2005.

Yes, but if you watch the news that fact is never reported. Instead you get story after story of robbery, murder, assault ...etc.

TV news stations care about ratings, papers care about circulation. Fear stories keep people watching/reading.

However, this has been true for as long as news reporting has existed, but the level of paranoia and isolation in society has not always been as high as it is now (although there have been similar periods in the past).

I don't think that the nature of media reporting, while likely a factor, is a sufficient explanation.

There's also social media though, which amplifies everything for people who believe what they consume through those channels.

They would claim that all the paranoia, helicopter parenting, incarceration, worked to reduce crime

They can claim it, but all the objective evidence says they're wrong.

There is not necessarily a direct relationship between the spread of crime and the spread of fear of crime. I see this as being related to the difference between risk and perceived risk.

Yes and the increased perception of crime is likely due to the US becoming a lower trust society than it previously was.

Well, I mean, the poster did mention:

>poisonous oligarch funded divisive politics

That is probably a large part of the reason people believe in the widespread crime myth.

Thats why I used the words "fear of crime." Mostly due to clickbait journalism and media lionizing of (alienated) whackjob mass murderers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com