Polling data released this week show that Americans’ views on national crime rates have come closer to reflecting reality. But it is less likely that we are returning to common sense than that partisanship is skewing the data in a sharper direction than usual.

“Americans’ perception of crime in the United States has improved,” writes Gallup’s Megan Brenan, “and the percentage saying national crime has increased over the past year fell 13 points, to 64%.” The number of respondents who said crime in the United States was “extremely” or “very serious” also fell 7 points, to 56 percent, over the past year.

At first glance, this is good news, as it increasingly reflects reality.

“Data from both the FBI and the BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics) show dramatic declines in violent and property crime rates in the United States since the early 1990s, when crime soared in much of the country.” country,” John Gramlich of Pew Research wrote in April 2024. “Using FBI data, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2022,” while property crime fell 59 percent during the same period. The BJS statistics were even more impressive, Gramlich found, writing that “violent and property crime rates in the United States each fell 71% between 1993 and 2022.”

And yet, people don’t seem to believe the good news. “In 23 of 27 Gallup polls conducted since 1993, at least 60% of American adults have said there is more crime nationally than the previous year, despite the downward trend in crime rates during most of the year. part of that period,” Gramlich added. In fact, according to a graph from latest version of GallupThe last year in which less than 60 percent of respondents (53 percent) said crime had increased from the previous year was 2004.

While the most recent Gallup poll continues that trend, with a clear majority of people still thinking crime is rising, it also indicates that the numbers are moving in the right direction. But unfortunately, people’s perceptions are unlikely to simply line up with reality.

As Gallup’s Brenan points out, partisanship appears to play the biggest role in the decline. “The October poll reveals that partisans have very different views on the incidence of crime in the United States, and Democrats’ much more positive perceptions are driving the overall change since last year.” In fact, while 68 percent of independents and a whopping 90 percent of Republicans said crime was up from the previous year, only 29 percent of Democrats said the same. (general crime fell in 2023 and it seems that there is a tendency to do the same in 2024).

This would make sense, as a pure display of partisanship: former President Donald Trump has endorsed each of his three presidential bids with claiming that violent crime is out of control, so perhaps Republicans will be more likely to believe him.

But the Gallup trend shows that since 1993, as violent crime rates have steadily fallen, Americans’ perceptions have changed depending on their party affiliation and the occupant of the White House: in 2004, during the president’s first term George W. Bush, the 53 percent of respondents who thought crime had increased included 39 percent of Republicans but 67 percent of Democrats. (FBI statistics for that year indicated (both violent crime and property crime each decreased by just over 2 percent that year).

On the other hand, Americans in general seem particularly bad at judging crime trends: In 2014, 63 percent of all respondents told Gallup that crime was up from the previous year, including 57 percent percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 2014 turned out to be the least violent year in decades.

But Americans’ views on crime and criminal justice, however capricious and ill-informed they may seem, have enormous consequences. After all, while the president likely has very little direct influence over criminal justice trends at his local police station, voters have the power to elect prosecutors, who wield tremendous power in deciding who will face prison sentences. prison and how punitive their sentences could be. And there is evidence that voters’ perceptions of crime affect the type of prosecutor they are likely to favor.

“The growth in incarceration rates in the United States over the past 40 years is historically unprecedented and unique internationally,” said a 2014 study found. “Local elected officials, including state legislators who enacted sentencing policies and, in many places, judges and prosecutors who decided individual cases, were closely attuned to their constituents’ concerns about crime. Under these conditions, sentencing policy punishment moved in a more punitive direction.”

Prosecutors also recognize it. in a Draft 2022 policy documentChika Okafor, a Harvard doctoral candidate, found that “being in an election year (for district attorney) increases total state prison admissions per capita and total sentencing months per capita,” meaning it is Prosecutors are more likely to seek prison terms and longer sentences for criminals during election years.

And even though with some exceptionscrime has followed a general downward trend for three decades, the United States still has the highest incarceration rate from any country.

Although public opinion polls may or may not seem particularly compelling as examples of political trends, the way people feel about crime directly affects how they vote and how the state treats those it arrests. As Okafor wrote, “collective approaches to transforming American public opinion, and not simply technocratic approaches to policy, can be critical to curbing mass incarceration.”