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I bet 'perceived crime rates' includes observations of crime-adjacent activities that wouldn't ever be measured in 'actual' rates: the appearance of ubiquitous graffiti (see pictures of 80s subway cars), or of loitering ne'er-do-wells in the park isn't necessarily a wrong perception about crime rates.
You don't have to fully endorse the broken windows theory of (causing) crime to accept that frequent observations of broken windows can cause a true perception of rising crime rates.
Along similar lines to what @WhiningCoil and @TIRM have said i think context and distribution also matter a great deal. As an example, I live in a mid-size American city that has a significantly above average crime rate on paper, but said crime is largely restricted to certain nieghborhoods and classes of people (IE Shitbirds). Respectable citizens know that nothing good happens north of a certain avenue after sundown, while the city PD maintains a visible presence in public spaces and transit (which discourages pan-handlers and loitering ner-do-wells) and actively persues property crimes. As a result the day to day perception and experience of most residents and visitors is mostly that of clean and safe '1' streets despite the ostensibly high rate of criminality.
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I'll bet the crime rates in my local major city are really quite low. Open drug selling and use is not prosecuted. Homeless shantytowns are allowed. Car break ins and retail theft are common but cops don't care. It's not even the cops' fault. Prosecutors won't prosecute so there would be no point in pursuing such criminals.
Indeed, if they decline to arrest and prosecute such criminals, then (convicted) crime rates must be low. My perception of property crime rates is rather higher since I see broken car glass on the sidewalk and many locked up items in stores. I bought a jacket and they were all locked together on cable locks. The employee explained that an organized theft gang rushed in and stole large numbers of coats, so now everything is cable locked. Grocery stores now have locked sections for not very expensive product. Who is stealing detergent? Anyways, I bet a review of local conviction rates would not reveal any of this.
Lots of people, actually.
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Crime rates aren't based on conviction rates, though I broadly agree with your post as at certain point no one even reports some of this stuff.
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A while (a decade or more, now) back, there were a series of articles about Tide being used as street currency for drug sales. I'm uncertain if that is still true, or even was ever particularly common, but it probably is at least known to store managers.
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/01/14/why-would-drug-dealers-use-tide-as-a-currency
Any good explanation of how they were converting it to USD?
They sell it to ghetto stores, who sell it to ghetto dwellers, probably using SNAP, unlawfully.
Yes, my understanding is that detergent a) never goes bad, and b) everyone needs. It's a very safe sale to make.
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I would bet on that being true, but not a complete explanation. I'd add:
A) Crime statistics don't capture all crime. A lot of stuff is never reported. Property crimes so minor that they don't merit the time because you know the cops won't do anything about it, like stuff stolen off your front porch or out of the back of a pickup truck. Scuffles that don't result in major injury. Things that happen to shitbirds while they are engaged in shitbird activities and would prefer not to involve the law. Sexual harassment or assault under gray circumstances. People observe or hear about those even if they aren't reported to police and it figures into their perceptions.
A1) Attempted crimes that don't rise to the level of being worth reporting or prosecuting. I see a guy hanging around my truck in the parking lot and yell hey can I help you and he runs off. The guy that follows my wife for a block or two so she goes into a store and he disappears. Those don't show up in statistics. This largely overlaps with what you are saying.
B) A lot of people are wildly paranoid, and will over-react to news reports of crimes. People will tell me that in a local small city "Two or three people get killed there every weekend;" if I look at the statistics 13 people were killed there in 2021, 9 in 2022, 17 in 2023, 4 in 2024. But that's enough that they can remember a story about a person getting shot, and it makes them start to worry about going downtown.
C) People who are victims of crime talk about it a lot, and typically write over anything they did to "deserve" it.
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