REFRAMING PUBLIC SAFETY
Crime & Safety in North Carolina and Nationwide
The Problem
Headlines, breaking news alerts, and campaign speeches would have you believe crime is rampant across America. But the facts tell a much different story – over the past three decades, crime has dramatically decreased in North Carolina and across the nation.
This split between the facts of crime rates and the feelings around crime and safety is old, and its causes are familiar. Statistics get warped and distorted by imprecise methods and inherent bias. Definitions of crimes get changed. Reports from law enforcement agencies are often incomplete and under-sourced. In short, the numbers do not depict the reality of crime, nor do they adequately depict the causes of harm in people’s day to day lives.
Despite the clear data we do have – that since the early 1990s, the rate of crime has fallen – Americans still believe crime is on the rise. Why? People’s feelings and perceptions about crime and safety are no doubt informed by a myriad of things. But if it’s not a steady increase in actual crime, year after year, what is it? As part of our Reframing Public Safety series, we are pulling back the curtain on entrenched narratives about public safety that mislead the public and ultimately work against keeping people safe.
This explainer is a quick look at how politics and media build and perpetuate myths about crime and safety, and offers alternatives that would serve true public safety. Exploiting Americans’ fears about crime may be a lucrative tactic for candidates and elected officials – and the media companies that cover them – but it undermines public safety in two key ways:
“If corporate theft, environmental harm, and government corruption were covered as crime and given the primetime day-in and day-out coverage that gun violence gets, maybe the state of the world would be healthier and safer for us all.”
— Morgan Elise Johnson, co-founder and publisher of The TRiiBE, an independent digital media platform reporting on the experiences of Black Chicagoans
The “Rising Crime” Myth Feedback Loop
What fuels the “rising crime” myth? Most of the time, it’s not that people have noticed an uptick in muggings on their block. Americans for decades have been much more likely to say that crime is up nationally rather than in their own area, demonstrating the outsized influence of delocalized tales of “rising crime.” Instead, studies show the shady clickbait stories told by the largest platforms and the actions taken by people in power, all shape the public’s understanding of crime and its solutions.
Unfortunately, the “rising crime” myth is a powerful tool for people who want to exploit our anxieties. Racialized fears of violence and instances of tragedy are leveraged to create a sense of crisis. Politicians make promises to enforce “law and order,” to be “tough on crime,” in return for donations and votes. The media provides sensationalized coverage in return for views and ad dollars. These narratives that sustain this cycle are replete with racial bias, distort reality, and make people feel less safe than they actually are. Communities that do struggle with relatively high rates of violence are let down by policies that expose them to more policing and incarceration, but do not make them safer. On the whole, the public policies generated in this process are reactionary, and run the gamut from wrongheaded to plain malicious.
How It Undermines Public Safety
Rather than funneling money, time, and energy toward true public safety, our nation’s leaders continue to make policy choices centering the myth of “rising crime”: hyper-surveillance, criminalization, harsh sentencing, prison expansion, and – despite what you might have heard – increased police funding.
The myth of “rising crime” pushes us to invest in these ineffective and inhumane policies while also making us abandon the policies that could actually help keep us safe. For example, research shows stopping prosecutions of nonviolent misdemeanors makes our communities safer – and yet, prosecutors who took this step were criticized, blamed for crime rates, or even ousted from office.
As earnest stakeholders in creating a safer world for everyone, it is important to acknowledge many people do genuinely feel unsafe. While that feeling might not be connected to crime statistics, it’s still real. When we hyperfocus on crime, many valid reasons for folks to feel vulnerable and unprotected are ignored. For example, far too many people experience chronic food insecurity and housing insecurity in this country. Here in North Carolina where wage theft is rampant, millions of dollars per year are stolen from the lowest-paid, most economically vulnerable workers. Because they cannot afford to do so, people commonly forgo seeking needed medical treatment and buying their prescription drugs. These are unacceptable policy failures. Everyone deserves stability. Public safety necessitates, at the very least, ensuring people’s basic needs are met.
The story of New York’s 2019 major bail reform legislation is another example. The law eliminated cash bail and pretrial detention for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies (representing about 90 percent of arrests in the state). The backlash to this pro-public-safety policy change was overwhelming, with (even previously-supportive) politicians and police leaders alike baselessly blaming the new law for the pandemic-era crime numbers. A study of media coverage of the new law found that, since its passage, hundreds of articles were published that falsely linked bail reform and “rising crime.” In the end, fear-mongering won out, and three sets of regressive rollbacks to the bail reform have since been signed into law. The power of sensationalist media to kill hard-fought public safety reforms should surprise no one.
Solutions
We must hold media outlets that profit off of racism and fear accountable. In recent years, some outlets have shown a willingness to amend their approach to crime and safety coverage. Even incremental policy changes – such as the choice to stop using mugshots, to stop naming suspects in minor crime stories (or to stop covering these stories at all), and to consider taking down old crime story archives – are all meaningful steps in the right direction. But the coverage of crime during the recent election seasons and the spike in homicides connected to the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic shows us we have a ways to go. Public safety stakeholders across policy areas should be vigilant about supporting and insisting upon accurate, nuanced narratives about crime and safety.
Politicians and criminal legal system stakeholders must follow the evidence when it comes to pursuing policies that actually reduce crime, shrink the criminal legal system, and promote public safety. Though this explainer highlights bad actors in this space, history shows us that well-intentioned leaders often walk into the “tough on crime” trap. We have known better for decades. Leaders should now do better — to promote productive public safety narratives, and to avoid the policy missteps of the past half-century. Prisons and police will not save us.
To improve public safety we not only have to reform the criminal legal system, but we have to tackle the root social and economic causes of crime. Communities with accessible affordable housing have lower crime rates– while housing policies like eviction are destabilizing and may lead to increased crime rates. Research shows better access to mental health care, including substance use disorder treatment, also reduces crime. Ensuring young people are supported and well-cared from the schoolyard to the community center is also key. Investment in our built environment (e.g., green spaces, public transportation, and third places) pays off in crime reduction and community building.
Resources
Building a Better Beat: A New Approach to Public Safety Reporting
Messaging Guide: Countering “Tough on Crime” Rhetoric with a “Serious About Safety” Frame
