Highlights
Americans say a low crime rate (68%), low housing and living costs (66%), and good weather (62%) make a place attractive to live.
Americans say a high crime rate (73%), high housing costs (65%) and high taxes (62%) make a place undesirable.
Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former senior crime prevention and statistics specialist at the Ministry of Justice Clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former adjunct associate professor of criminology and public affairs at the University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the national media campaign “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime.” Successful media campaigns against crime produced by the state.
Thirty-five years leading award-winning (50+) public relations for state and national criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often focusing on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcast series. Produced a unique and emulated style of proactive government public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study – Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Media Success: Everything You Need to Survive Reporters and Your Organization‘ available from Amazon and other booksellers.
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Article
We have a paradox when it comes to our perception of crime. Data from Gallup and other sources show record fears of crime. Polling data shows that election crime is a top issue for Americans.
In terms of official statistics, crimes reported to law enforcement (the vast majority are not) indicate a significant reduction in crime per year premature statistics provided by the FBI for the first six months of 2024.
According to the most recent official U.S. Department of Justice data from the 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey report shows that we just recorded the highest increase in violent crime in our nation’s history.
Yet 98 percent of the media reports I read are exclusively about crimes reported to the police; they argue that crime will drop significantly by 2024.
But we have another study below about America’s perception of crime as the main driver of families moving from one community to another.
The survey
The research comes from “The best (and worst) places to live in 2024, according to Americans:“
High crime is the most undesirable characteristic for the third year in a row, with nearly 3 in 4 Americans (73%) saying it makes a place undesirable.
Americans are most likely to move when crime (58%), cost of living (52%) or taxes (47%) increase.
in 2024, when moving to a new location, the cost of housing will be the most important factor. Affordable housing is even more important than it was in 2023, when Americans said it was the third most crucial factor behind the cost of living and safe neighborhoods.
Methodology
The data in this study comes from an online survey commissioned by Smart real estate. One thousand American adults were surveyed from June 14 to 16, 2024. Each respondent answered 25 questions about where they live, which parts of the US they prefer, and what they think makes a city or state desirable.
In addition, they examined U.S. Census migration data at the state and metro level to determine which states and cities Americans are migrating from.
Conclusions
There are endless companies and media sources offering data on the most dangerous or safest cities. Readers should choose the methodologies in this and other reports carefully.
But the above data aligns with reports from Gallup (record fear of crime) and national polls that rank crime as one of the top election concerns on the part of Americans.
Drawing firm conclusions regarding official crime data is extremely confusing, based on lower numbers of crimes reported to law enforcement (the vast majority are not) versus the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which states that there there is a record increase in violent crime.
But there is no doubt that Americans are deeply concerned about their safety and the above data adds another dimension to our understanding of crime in America.
Moving is incredibly complex and expensive (I’m working on it right now) and it’s understandable that crime is “the” primary driver or “a” primary motivating factor in a family’s move.
I have suggested in previous articles that crime destroys cities and the above data seems to confirm my assumption.
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