Crime continues to be atop the minds of New Yorkers, with one recent poll finding a significant majority of residents being fearful they will become another victim.
The poll comes even as the NYPD recently reported significant drops in murders and shootings during the first half of 2023, and small decreases in other major crimes such as burglaries and robberies.
The Siena College Research Institute released the findings of a wide-ranging survey of Big Apple dwellers on Wednesday, which found that residents are becoming increasingly concerned about perceived lawlessness in New York.
According to the study, 70% of New York City residents are very (30%) or somewhat (40%) concerned that they will be targeted in a serious crime, while 57% of respondents said they were fearful for the safety of themselves or their families in public places like schools, stores or houses of worship.
The organization’s chief researcher highlighted their troubling findings, and noted the impact that constant fear of crime has on New Yorkers.
“More worrisome is that a majority of New Yorkers say that they are concerned about their or their family’s safety when thinking about being in public places, the places we all go, including schools, stores or religious institutions,” Don Levy said in a statement. “Crime and the threat of crime is on the minds of many of us as we simply go through our everyday lives.”
When asked about their current level of concern relative to the past, 39% of respondents said they have “never been this worried about my personal safety.”
On the streets, subways and other public places, 41% of respondents say they’ve been “threatened by a stranger’s behavior.”
New Yorkers also have not been living in fear silently, according to the survey — as 38% of people claimed they have called the police to attend to a situation where they felt unsafe in their neighborhoods in the last 12 months. A majority of city residents also said they have spent money on their personal safety, including purchasing security cameras and self-defense devices like pepper spray.
Meanwhile, many people surveyed believe their fear of crime is warranted — with 16% saying they have been assaulted, and 16% also claiming to have been the victim of a burglary in the past year.
Siena conducted the study during a six-day window in early June using both telephone calls and online outreach, and based their findings on 802 respondents in New York State, including 345 residents of the five boroughs, before statistically adjusting the data to be representative of the population as a whole.
Post-pandemic crime trends
The widespread fear of crime in the Big Apple is not born from unwarranted mania, as trends have been moving in an unwelcome direction in recent years.
New York City saw a spike in murders in 2020, when 468 were killed in the five boroughs — a significant jump from prior years. For instance, the annual murder rate between 2012 and 2019 was 335.
That 2020 jump was not an aberration, as there were also an alarmingly high number of homicides in 2021 (438) and 2022 (438).
The number of homicides reported by the NYPD this year—through July 9—totaled 212, with there being some improvement in recent months. The number of murders for the year to date is down 8.2% compared to the same period in 2022.
Other categories of crime are also notably high, although down slightly from 2022 — including 766 rapes, 8,211 robberies, 14,175 assaults, and 7,148 robberies so far in 2023.
Mayor Eric Adams, for his part, blames sensationalist attention being paid to individual instances of crime for the fear that New Yorkers feel.
“People start their day picking up the news, the morning papers. And they see some of the most horrific events that may happen throughout the previous day,” said the mayor during a Wednesday interview with Fox 5 New York. “It plays on your psyche.”
Meanwhile, Adams, a former police officer who often spoke about out-of-control crime during his campaign for mayor in 2021, pledged to do more to promote a sense of calm among New Yorkers.
“My mission is to move people from what they felt to what they’re feeling. And no one can take away the fact this city is humming,” he said. “As you walk the streets, you go to Times Square, you’re back on our subway, we peak at four million riders. We’re seeing people getting back out enjoying our parks. So we know it’s going to take time.”
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