> It's no wonder people think violence has increased... as you yourself said, there are more murders! Well, no. People think crime has increased because that's

> It's no wonder people think violence has increased... as you yourself said, there are more murders! Well, no. People think crime has increased because that's what people always seem to think. Why is that the case? I don't think anyone knows for sure, but probably some combination of the media amplifying the most egregious crimes ("if it bleeds, it leads" etc.) and politicians (of both parties, historically) hoping to gain an advantage from painting their opponents as "soft on crime." > but that people's perceptions of crime are wrong in that they believe it's increased I never claimed this. I claimed that the evidence shows that people's perceptions of crime bear no relationship to actual crime stats. (And therefore "perceptions" are a bad way to make policy in this particular case.) > Here's yet another gotcha when evaluating crime stats: the idea that any crime is interchangeable is silly. Some crimes are many orders of magnitude worse than others. This is true of course, but as far as perceptions go the most egregious forms of crime are actually the ones most people are least likely to be exposed to (thankfully!). I am with you in that the rises in murder rates are concerning. But - as I've been saying all along - to have a reasonable discussion about what we ought to do about it requires first laying out the facts.