The disparity between what Republicans and Democrats believe about the national crime rate is larger than ever, according to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday, and public safety will be top-of-mind for many voters headed to the polls next week.
Crime surged during the pandemic, but police data shows gun violence and other violent crime has since dipped back near pre-pandemic levels.
Overall, violent crime declined about 3% in 2023 from the year before, according to the FBI. Murders and non-negligent manslaughter were down 12% in the same window.
"For decades, the American public's perceptions of crime have been inaccurate," said Justin Pickett, a political science professor at the University at Albany.
He said violent crimes across the country have trended down for the last 30 years, but perceptions about crime have grown more inaccurate over the same time period.
And Republicans this election cycle are banging the public safety drum — telling voters they're less safe now than they were in recent years.
U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican seeking reelection in the competitive 19th Congressional District, has campaigned against criminal justice policies like New York's bail reform laws or the state's stance on immigration.
"All of those policies have made us less safe and we have to start by ensuring safety overall," Molinaro told reporters in Albany last week.
That message doesn't line up with state and national data: The number of violent crime victims declined 4% between 2022 and 2023, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey.
Earlier this month, Gov. Kathy Hochul said homicides are down 12% and overall crime is down 10% across New York on average.
Crime data varies depending on the community as gun violence remains elevated in upstate cities like Albany and Buffalo.
"Each community is being hit differently, but stats don't lie," said Calliana Thomas, the director of the state Office of Gun Violence Prevention. "The data does not lie. We are definitively seeing a decline across all types of gun violence within New York state due to strict policies as well as resource allocations across the state."
Thomas said various state programs, including the Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative, or GIVE program, have reduced gun violence in dozens of communities without infringing on gun rights.
But an increase of misinformation and political messaging about public safety is having an impact.
Tuesday's Gallup poll shows the largest disparity on record between what Republicans and Democrats think about crime. The data shows 90% of Republicans think national crime has gone up compared to 29% of Democrats and 68% of independent voters.
Many political advertisements have focused connected public safety issues to needed immigration reform as 200,000 migrants have arrived in New York over the last two years.
Pickett said decades of national data prove it's inaccurate to tie immigration to a rise in crime.
"Immigration is actually either not related to crime or negatively related," he said Tuesday. "That is, as the number of immigrants in an area goes up, the crime rate goes down slightly, and we know why. Because on average, immigrant, legal and illegal, commit less crime. In a national survey of law enforcement, they thought the opposite... [but] it's not their job to do a formal analysis of the causal effect of immigration on crime — it's the job of people who are economists, are criminologists."
But police say it's not about official crime figures — it's about how people feel.
Delaware County Sheriff Craig Dumond, president of the New York State Sheriffs' Association, said crimes have become more severe over the last several years, leaving people in upstate communities feeling unsafe.
"Talk to the law enforcement officers who are out there every day... talk to the people that live in these communities," he said. "I think they're probably going to tell you they don't agree that crime is on its way down. I just don't see it being that way."
The sheriff recounted seeing more serious stabbings and assaults in his rural county than ever before in his 20-year career. He's also skeptical about how government agencies collect and present state and national crime data.
Pickett said it's easy for people to remember a few severe incidents — causing voters to dramatically overestimate their probability or likelihood.
"The worst thing you can do is rely on your feelings and ignore actual evidence collected by people whose job it is to collect evidence, and they’ve been doing it," Pickett said, adding stopping misinformation is the most critical way to stop the false perception about crime trends.
DuMond said a surge of substance abuse and mental health issues are changing the landscape around public safety and worsening the public's perception. And regardless of the data, the sheriff said people will remember their emotions at the ballot box first — even if official numbers shows violent crime is slowing.
"The numbers may be down, but the numbers we have are so much more significant when it comes to the type of offenses," DuMond said. "Numbers can say one thing. What people feel in their minds and in their hearts is a totally different thing, and we really need to be focused on that."