1 in 4 now fear attacks near their homes: poll

A quarter of Americans said they now fear being attacked in their own neighborhood, according to a new poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

In breaking the poll down on racial lines, the surveyors found white were less likely to have fears of being attacked near their residences than people of color.

The poll, published on Thursday, found that 25 percent of Black respondents said they have fears of being attacked in their own neighborhood, compared to 19 percent of white respondents.

NPR reported that 26 percent of Latino respondents said they have feared being attacked near their residences, while 36 percent of Native American respondents and 21 percent of Asian respondents shared the same sentiment. 

When asked if they view crime as a serious problem in their community, 40 percent of Native American respondents said that crime is a serious neighborhood problem, while 35 percent of Black and Latino respondents in the poll shared concerns about their communities’ crime problems. 

Twenty-eight percent of White respondents also believed that crime is a serious problem in their community, while 22 percent of Asian respondents agreed with the same sentiment, the poll said. 

Crime has been a major topic of discussion over the last few years and is expected to be an issue in this fall’s midterm elections, where Republicans have sought to argue that Democrats have not offered sufficient support for police.

The NPR poll was conducted from May 16 to June 13 with a total of 4,192 respondents participating in the survey. The poll’s margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.