this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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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?

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 71 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Violent crime has been consistently been dropping for decades. In certain areas petty crime has risen.

Times are getting tough, I expect petty crime like shoplifting food to increase.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 48 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I've never seen anyone shoplifting food.

And I never will.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also shoplifting items with high potential resale value.

[–] Fondots@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

Anecdotally, really just shoplifting in general.

I work in 911 dispatch, been there for about 7 years, so long enough to have a decent feel for how things have changed since before COVID.

And while I'm not keeping a personal tally, it definitely seems like over the last couple of years I've been getting a whole lot more calls about shit like people stealing a single red bull from a convenience store. (Yes, they call 911 for that sometimes, and we also answer a lot of the 10-digit non emergency lines, it all pretty much has to go through us one way or another, it's the same cops responding whether it's an emergency or not so at some point it has to end up with central dispatch)

We actually have a couple convenience stores with security guards now because of this.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 57 points 3 days ago

Crime has gentrified. Now a greater proportion of it happens in the Whitehouse.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] blueworld@piefed.world 5 points 2 days ago

Thank you for actually answering the question with a source, rather then hearsay or conjecture without sources.

To answer from a quote:

Examining trends over a longer timeframe, violent crimes are below levels seen in the first half of 2019, the year prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There were 14% fewer homicides in the study cities in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2019. Similarly, reported aggravated assault (-5%), gun assaults (-4%), sexual assault (-28%), domestic violence (-8%), robbery (-30%), and carjacking (-3%) were lower in 2025

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

Crime is up across the board if you consider illegal actions by federal agents to also be crimes.

It's just going unpunished and unrecorded in an official capacity

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I expect we'll see that reflected in 2025's numbers when they come out.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

...

The entire point is that they're absent from the numbers...

So obviously it wouldn't be reflected in the numbers...

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

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.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Think about how much propaganda we are fed. The right tried to tell us that all major cities are horrible crime ridden deathtraps and it's just not true. I can walk through my city any time and be fine. Now people may not feel safe but feelings aren't what is actually happening.

What is proven is that fear gets clicks, and so the more you amp up that things are unsafe the more people will click.

[–] bizarroland@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

I mean, crime was majorly up in the 1970s when the lead saturation in the population was at its highest, but since we got rid of leaded gasoline, crime has been on a consistent downturn ever since.

People are still treating crime as if it were the 70s and not 50 years later when the fundamental issue that caused the crime spike to begin with has been dealt with.

Once the last people that were heavily saturated with lead die out in the next 20 years or so, we should start to be able to deal with this rationally, I hope.

[–] switcheroo@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Given how many felons are currently in office and stinking up the WH, I'd say way more crime is happening now. It's just all done by our so-called government. Look at how many pending lawsuits are going on.

Nah, more crime.

[–] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Crime is legal now. Well only if you are the president or rub elbows with him, that is

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

It's increased with the Inner Crime Extremists (ICE) gang.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Can I get a quote from the article that explains what you are talking about? I don't see anything about an opinion that crime is now lower. Just stats about which party's views peope favor in regards to crimjnal policy.

[–] andrewta@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yes, no and Maybe. It just depends on who you ask.

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

aNd ThEy SaY cRiMe Is DOWN!

Some dumbass MAGAt on any Facebook post about a single crime.