Poll: Majority say they are concerned about rising crime in US cities

A majority of Americans say they are concerned about rising crime in U.S. cities, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill on Monday.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents say they are concerned that crime is rising in the nation’s cities, while 46 percent of respondents said they were concerned about rising crime in their own communities.

“At the same time they see an increase of violence and crime and are concerned that prosecutors are not prosecuting the crimes — they blame the protests and the high unemployment when asked what is responsible for the spike in violence,” said Harvard CAPS/Harris polling director Mark Penn. “They also single out social media for being used to coordinate violence and in their view not doing much to curb it.”

A New York Times analysis published earlier this month showed that overall crime down is done 5.3 percent in 25 large U.S. cities in relation to last year. Violent crime was down 2 percent, according to the findings. 

However, murder in the same 25 cities is up 16.1 percent compared to 2019, according to the Times. 

New York’s homicide rate for the first half of 2020 is up 23 percent over 2019, according to the city’s police department.

New York police reported 205 citywide shooting incidents in June 2020, compared to 89 in June 2019, marking a 130.3 percent increase. Burglary in the city also increased, with 1,783 incidents reported in June 2020 compared to 817 in June 2019. 

In Chicago, homicides rose 39 percent between the last week of June and the first week of July of this year, according to the city’s police department.

The development come as calls to defund police departments amid nationwide protests over racial injustice grow louder. The Trump administration, in turn, has touted a staunch “law and order” message. 

President Trump announced last week that he would send federal law enforcement officers into Chicago and Albuquerque, N.M., as part of his crackdown on what he has called an unchecked surge of violence in Democratic-run cities.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) has slammed the move and has instead called on the administration to focus on solutions to curbing gun violence. 

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll online survey of 1,932 registered voters was conducted on July 21-23. It is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll throughout 2020.

Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.