Filed
6:00 a.m. EST
11.19.2025
The sitting president generally is a higher predictor of how secure somebody feels than what the crime knowledge reveals.
U.S. President Donald Trump visited legislation enforcement officers in August 2025 on the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility in Washington, D.C., after declaring a “crime emergency” and deploying federal officers within the nation’s capital.
The United States is experiencing historic drops in crime throughout virtually all classes, together with homicide, housebreaking and motorized vehicle theft. However crime statistics don’t essentially change how secure People really feel or whether or not they assist the most recent public security proposals, like President Donald Trump’s deployments of the Nationwide Guard into U.S. cities. These beliefs are pushed by political preferences.
By many measures, People are extra politically divided than ever, and this polarization colours folks’s perceptions of the world round them. In line with knowledge from the analysis agency Gallup, which publishes an annual survey on crime perceptions, Republicans had been extra more likely to imagine crime was rising throughout the Barack Obama and Joe Biden presidencies than beneath George W. Bush or Donald Trump. The reverse was true for Democrats.
The partisan shift was particularly dramatic in Gallup’s ballot performed this October, after Trump’s return to the White Home. Whereas 90% of Republicans surveyed in 2024 stated nationwide crime charges had risen over the previous yr, simply over half believed the identical was true in 2025. In the meantime, Democrats had been extra more likely to say crime was on the rise this yr than they had been in 2024, however their shift was smaller than Republicans’.
Nationwide homicide charges started falling in 2023, effectively earlier than Trump’s second time period, and have continued to say no ever since. This yr might end result within the largest one-year drop in homicide ever recorded, with knowledge going way back to the Sixties. Comparable traits are going down with different violent and property crimes.
On the floor, the most recent polls replicate this safer actuality. Lower than 50% of individuals surveyed by Gallup this yr stated they believed crime was rising within the U.S., the bottom proportion since 2001. But the info additionally reveals Republicans are driving the decline, following a decades-old sample of occasion members shifting their views beneath new presidential administrations.
Lengthy-term traits make it clear that partisanship is deeply embedded in People’ crime perceptions, even in their very own communities. Individuals report being much less afraid of strolling round at evening and believing crime charges are decrease of their neighborhood when their political occasion runs the Govt Department, based on knowledge from 25 years of Gallup surveys. This discovering is very true for Republicans.
“There’s a political dimension to it, completely,” stated John Roman, director of the Heart on Public Security & Justice on the College of Chicago. Roman stated a rising variety of Republicans and Democrats reply questions on crime and security in a method that indicators assist for his or her occasion, even when it’s opposite to their private experiences.
“It’s folks being afraid of issues that objectively they in all probability shouldn’t be that afraid of, or at the least reporting it that method,” he added. “And different folks defiantly saying, ‘I’m not afraid of these items,’ that perhaps they need to be a bit extra afraid of.”
In recent times, Republicans and Democrats have been extra persistently voting for his or her occasion’s candidates in elections. Fewer People are prepared to vote for the opposing occasion’s presidential nominee or down-ballot candidates.
As many as 43% of People now establish as independents, the highest proportion in additional than three many years, whereas self-proclaimed Republicans and Democrats are dwindling. About as many independents “lean Democrat” as “lean Republican,” which helps clarify why their survey responses and voting patterns seem to fall in between the 2 political events.
These polarization patterns are additionally mirrored in what crime-reduction methods folks assist. Whereas the vast majority of People oppose Trump deploying the Nationwide Guard as a crime-fighting pressure in U.S. cities and his proposal to cost 14-year-olds as adults in Washington, D.C., his Republican base stays staunchly supportive.
Since August, at the least three nationwide surveys have examined public attitudes on Nationwide Guard deployments. Every discovered a stark partisan hole. The most up-to-date ballot confirmed round 80% of Republicans in favor, in comparison with solely 5% of Democrats.
“It’s virtually like a referendum on Trump,” stated Lydia Saad, the director of U.S. social analysis at Gallup.
The October survey discovered that navy deployment was essentially the most polarizing of the 5 interventions studied. Researchers additionally requested about making an attempt violent juvenile offenders as adults, boosting assets for police or social packages, and supporting the loss of life penalty. All of them confirmed a political occasion divide. Just one intervention — whether or not to carry mother and father legally accountable for a kid’s gun crime — lacked a considerable partisan hole.
Saad stated the extra a difficulty is mentioned by political occasion leaders, the broader the occasion divergence. “The gaps correspond completely with how a lot these points are within the information and who’s related to them,” she defined.
In a September NPR/Ipsos survey, Republicans whose fundamental information supply was Fox Information or different conservative media shops, like Breitbart or Newsmax, had been virtually universally supportive of deploying the Nationwide Guard, with 95% in favor, in comparison with 70% of Republicans who depend on different info sources.
“Our fractured media panorama and disparate sources of knowledge helps to exacerbate a few of these political divides,” stated Mallory Newall, a vp at Ipsos.
Partisanship isn’t the one issue influencing crime perceptions. For instance, ladies, folks of shade and other people with decrease family incomes are extra probably than others to precise fears of strolling alone at evening of their neighborhoods.
The NPR/Ipsos ballot reveals that People appear to be extra involved about partisanship than they’re about crime itself. When requested to pinpoint their three “most worrying” points, 43% of respondents listed political extremism and polarization, whereas solely about one-quarter ranked crime or gun violence. Different research have discovered that solely round 5% of People presently take into account crime and violence to be the one most necessary drawback within the U.S.
On the similar time, a slowly rising proportion of U.S. adults, primarily Democrats and independents, assist legal justice reforms.
Gallup discovered that greater than two-thirds of People now say more cash and energy ought to go towards addressing underlying causes of crime, reminiscent of drug habit, homelessness and psychological well being points, slightly than towards strengthening legislation enforcement.
“This is able to be a extremely good second to embrace the general public’s choice for social coverage as an answer to crime slightly than legislation enforcement as an answer to crime,” stated Roman on the College of Chicago.
“On most measures, in case you are beneath 50 years outdated, that is the most secure America you’ve ever lived in,” he added. “Our insurance policies ought to replicate that.”
