There’s an editor of a newspaper called The Deseret who follows my blog. She’s called me a few times to interview me. Her name is Jennifer Graham. She is the Ideas and Culture editor of the Deseret News.

It’s been a few years since I’ve heard from her, but she emailed me this week to ask if she could link to my blog for an article she’s working on about crime.

Here’s an excerpt from her article:

Regardless of what the numbers say, many Americans don’t feel safe, and fear — not statistics — is what they’ll take with them into the voting booth. According to Gallup, “More than three-quarters of Americans, 77%, believe there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago, and a majority, 55%, say the same about crime in their local area.”

Significantly, the number of Americans reporting that someone in their household has been a victim of crime edged up last year. Again, per Gallup, “Overall, a combined 28% say they or someone in their household has been victimized in the past year by one of seven different crimes asked about in the survey, including vandalism, car theft, burglary, robbery, armed robbery, sexual assault and battery. The composite figure is up from 23% when the question was last asked in 2021 and from 20% — the low point in the trend — in 2020.”

Elizabeth Wickham, a blogger in Arizona, recently wrote that she knows two people who were mugged within two weeks. “If I know two people mugged in a short amount of time, this must be happening frequently,” she wrote.

https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2024/03/06/new-york-city-national-guard-subways-democrats-crime/

Graham said she thinks that it doesn’t matter what the actual statistics are, if Americans don’t feel safe, this is a problem for whatever party is in power. 

Here’s a link to an article that she wrote about parents hiring parenting coaches in 2018:

What are your thoughts about crime where you live?

Has it gotten worse, better or stayed the same?