To quote the great George Orwell, “the”.
Well the murder rate is rising in some cities even if it isn’t rising overall. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/08/us/us-murder-rates.html?_r=0
The problem is as others have said, when news represented the local paper and the local tv news, you didn’t hear about what went on elsewhere. These days, thanks to Twitter and websites and news feeds and everything else, all you are fed is an image of ‘crime everywhere’, when in the past that rape in Spokane, that husband killing his wife in Idaho, would make page 56 of the paper if that. And yes, it is out there because it sells, we now have the digital revolution that has made everything instantaneous, and that is what sells, gets people ot use the services.
In some ways, it isn’t all that different than the 1970’s, when tv and movies sold the idea of society going to hell, we had movies like “death Wish”, and tv programs like “Kojak” made the world look like it was all living in the south bronx or something (my wife and friends of mine grew up in eastern Europe, shows like Kojak were allowed to show how horrible it was living in the US).
and yep, fear sells, I remember growing up in the burbs and people being shocked that for example my parents let me go into NYC with friends when I was a teenager or that we spent a lot of time there. These same people in our sleepy burg had burglar alarms and car alarms and locked the house up tight at night, in a place where the big crimes were people using the town tennis court without an id badge, rolling through a stop sign, and giving tickets if people’s lawns were too high or they had too much of their front yard planted and wasn’t grass sigh.
On the other hand, reminds me of a chapter in Lincoln Steffen’s autobiography, titled “How I created a crime wave”. He was a crime reporter, along with Carl Schurz (yep, whom the park by the Mayor’s mansion in NYC is named after), and the gist of the story was that when he got on the beat, there was a sort of gentleman’s agreement not to report the routine crimes, in return the cops would give the crime reporters exclusives on the really juicy stuff, love triangles, etc, etc…well, being new and industrious, Steffens reported what he saw, and Schurz and the other crime reporters were left in an awkward position, so they started reporting everything, and soon it looked like there was a massive crime wave, politicians got involved, etc…when nothing had changed, other than the stuff being made visible.
Our HOA neighborhood watch person keeps everyone updated on crime in the neighborhood. We’ve had a lot more property crimes than I recall in the past. Meth addicts hot prowling the area. Package thieves. Knock-knock burglars. Mail box thieves stealing identities. Car break-ins. The police think it is due to a new law that downgraded penalties for these crimes.
In my case - the internets!
When I moved to my current home 2 years ago, I signed up for Nextdoor.com, a popular Craigs List-like site. Every time there’s lost pet, a break-in, or an attempted break-in, every time a FedEx package is stolen from the front porch, every time someone’s unlocked car is rifled through – it pops up on my Nextdoor.com feed.
If you look at statistics, my old neighborhood had much more crime than my current area. But I wasn’t on Nextdoor.com there, and didn’t know it. So even though I live in a safer neighborhood now, I lock my doors like never before and take in neighbors’ packages if they’re out of town because I think the house is being cased.
And don’t get me started on the dangers of runaway dogs and cats, either. Having a pet must be tremendously stressful.
I do live in Chicago, and even here, our crime is only up in some neighborhoods. We are concerned on behalf of our fellow Chicagoans, but there’s no reason for me or my neighbors to be anxious about our own safety.
I just got a notification from our local police that property crimes are up 20% in our area over 2014. The reason is that per a ballot proposition that passed that year, nothing happens to thieves who steal less than $950. at a time. The police won’t even come out to fingerprint a car that’s been broken into if the loot stolen from the car is less than $950. Thieves know this and are taking advantage of it.
Police have pretty much never fingerprinted for thefts at that scale. That’s not a change.
It is for this reason that I will not watch local news, car chases, accidents, the latest Kim K- all non-news hype and I hate the condescending tone, like i’m in fourth grade. In today’s news, Hoppy the frog, escaped his tank and jumped out into the highway where a good Samaritan found Hoppy and returned him safely to its owner- big cheesy smiles. I bury my head in Netflix and Amazon Prime where I can choose the drivel I’m in the mood for lol
“I think a particular news station has a profound effect on some of the elderly population in particular. They keep it on all day long and become anxious and fearful.”
I think that could apply to any of the 24 hour news networks. It all depends on what narrative they are capitalizing on. And their loyal viewers will fall in step and drink it all in.
Not limited to crime statistics only, IMO.
I do the same. It’s amazing how much safer the world is when you stop reading/watching the news. 
It amazes me what is on the so called news, a lot of it is fear mongering, whether it is the weather (the hurricane now in Haiti), crime, schools, etc, all you hear is the apocalypse is coming. Once in a while they have something nice, but because it sells to those who watch news, they focus on everything doom and gloom, and worse it is surface level.
^ I think part of it is hype to keep people watching, but I also think that the world is a pretty crazy place right now. NATO/US-Russia relations are the lowest they have been since the cold war, China is actively land grabbing, the Phillipines president is threatening to cancel alliance with US and join Russia and China, North Korea is determined to “turn Washington in a pile of ashes”…
There are certainly reasons to be concerned about what’s happening out there. Personally, domestic issues are relatively low on my list of things to worry about.
Another issue to consider is that crime has changed. I don’t know the last time anyone I know was mugged, however, the number of people I know who have been the victim of ID theft or Income tax fraudulent filing has gone up. The amount of violent crime has gone down, but the new crimes take longer to for the victims to fix from months to even years.
Crime is affecting more and more of us. Violent crime may be down (I’m not even sure this is true depending on the area), but property crimes are way up (in our area). People I know are having their homes burglarized and their cars broken into. Adding to this sense of crime out of control is the fact that unless more than $950 is stolen, NOTHING will be done. The fact that a crime was committed, one’s sense of personal safety was invaded, and nothing is done is extremely frustrating to people.
This thread isn’t just about your area, @TatinG . Crime is down across the US, yet studies show that most people are under the (false) impression that it’s on the rise.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-violent-crimes-20160701-snap-story.html
In case you need a subscription to open the link.
Violent crime rose 10% in California in 2015. Property crime rose 8%.
Crime is a local issue. Nationwide stats don’t mean very much to an individual. The question was why do people think crime is rising. Well, if crime is rising in your city, state or neighborhood, then for you, crime is rising. The fact that it may be falling in places thousands of miles away is not relevant to your experience.
thanks for the link @TatinG
I think the rise in people fearing crime more is that it’s talked about a lot more and written about in sensational ways a lot more…newspapers need more clicks…and they’ve learned that dramatic news bring them clicks.
In any case, in the LA Times article above, it’s noted that violent crime rose by 10% in CA in 2015 but this was after two years of decline, and “the overall crime rate remained among the lowest in decades.” So there may be flucuations year to year but the trend in most cities (chicago an exception) is quite good.
another example, I could tell you the US has the one the highest quality drinking water as a nation. This doesn’t help the people of Flint, Michigan. This is why national statistics don’t always tell the complete story or provide comfort of mind that one might expect from a national statistic that shows an improvement.
But Americans also buy a ridiculous amount of bottled water. And not just in Flint, which also shows that people are pretty succeptible to suggestion.