Survey data released this week shows that Americans’ views on nationwide crime rates are moving closer to reality. But partisanship is less likely to come to our senses than to skew the data in a more accurate direction than usual.

“Americans’ perception of crime in the USA has improved” writes “The percentage of people who say national crime increased last year dropped 13 points to 64%,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan said. The number of respondents who say crime in the United States is “extreme” or “very serious” also dropped 7 points last year, to 56 percent.

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

“Both FBI and BJS (Bureau of Justice Statistics) data show dramatic declines in violent and property crime rates in the U.S. since the early 1990s, when crime was on the rise across much of the country,” said John Gramlich of Pew Research. Written in April 2024. “Using FBI data, violent crime fell 49 percent between 1993 and 2022, while property crimes fell 59 percent during the same period.” Gramlich noted that the BJS statistics are even more impressive, writing that “violent and financial crime rates in the United States each fell 71% between 1993 and 2022.”

But still people don’t seem to believe this good news. “In 23 of 27 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least 60% of U.S. adults said there was more crime nationally than the previous year, despite a downward trend in crime rates throughout much of that period,” Gramlich said. he added. Actually according to a graph Latest Gallup releaseThe last year in which less than 60 percent (53 percent) of respondents said crime had increased compared to the previous year was 2004.

The latest Gallup poll continues this trend, where the vast majority of people still think crime is increasing, while also showing that the numbers are moving in the right direction. But unfortunately, people’s perceptions are unlikely to align with reality.

As Gallup’s Brenan notes, partisanship appears to be playing the biggest role in the decline. “October polling finds that partisans have wildly divergent views on crime in the United States, with Democrats’ much more positive perceptions driving the overall change since last year.” In fact, 68 percent of independents and 90 percent of Republicans said crime increased from the previous year, while only 29 percent of Democrats said the same. (General crime crashed in 2023 and looks set to do the same in 2024.)

As a display of pure partisanship, this would make sense: Here’s how former President Donald Trump supported each of his three nominating races: claims violent crime is out of control, so perhaps Republicans are more likely to believe him.

But Gallup trends show that as violent crime rates have fallen steadily since 1993, Americans’ perceptions vary depending on their partisan leanings and who sits in the White House: 53 percent in 2004, during President George W. Bush’s first term. tu. Among those who thought crime was increasing were 39 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats. (FBI statistics from that year stated both violent and property crimes each decreased by just over 2 percent that year.)

Americans, on the other hand, appear to be particularly bad at assessing crime trends overall: 63 percent of those surveyed in 2014 told Gallup that crime had increased from the previous year; this includes 57 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, in 2014 The year with the least violence over decades.

But Americans’ views on crime and criminal justice, no matter how capricious and uninformed they may seem, are extremely important. After all, while the president likely has little direct influence on criminal justice trends in your local police district, voters do have the power to elect prosecutors who wield tremendous power in deciding who faces prison time and how punitive their sentences might be. There is also evidence that voters’ perceptions of crime influence what type of prosecutor they prefer.

“The increase in incarceration rates in the United States over the past 40 years is historically unprecedented and internationally unique.” 2014 study to create. “The state legislators who enacted sentencing policies and local elected officials, including judges and prosecutors who decided individual cases in many places, were highly responsive to their constituents’ concerns about crime. Under these circumstances, sentencing policy moved in a more punitive direction.”

Prosecutors are also aware of this. One 2022 draft policy documentHarvard PhD candidate Chika Okafor found that “being in a (district attorney) election year increases the total number of state prison admissions per capita and the total number of months sentenced per capita”; This means prosecutors are more likely to seek more prison time and longer sentences. They are criminals during election years.

And yet some exceptionscrime has been on a general downward trend for three decades, America is still highest incarceration rate of any country.

Whether or not opinion polls seem particularly compelling as examples of political leanings, how people think about crime directly affects how they vote and how the state treats people it arrests. As Okafor writes, “collective approaches to transforming U.S. public opinion, not just technocratic policy approaches, can be effective in preventing mass incarceration.”