Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Hettie O'Brien

Wednesday briefing: Why do people think crime is going up when it isn’t?

Two Metropolitan Police officers in high-visibility jackets watch spectators arriving at Wembley Stadium
Despite perception crime is falling in the UK. Photograph: John Patrick Fletcher/Action Plus/Shutterstock

Good morning. Apparently, gangs of “feral yobs” now rampage the streets in “lawless Britain,” where even your wing mirrors aren’t safe from brazen thieves. It doesn’t matter that crime is decreasing: most people, when asked, seem to think it’s on the rise.

This is the finding of a study from King’s College London published earlier this week, which surveyed nearly 4,000 people in Britain. It found perceptions of crime far removed from reality and shaped more by feelings than by facts. Reform voters are most likely to believe that crime is a growing problem, and many of them think that most people convicted of homicide are ethnic minorities (they aren’t). This isn’t confined to one party, though: the public as a whole tends to wrongly assume most people convicted of homicide are from an ethnic minority when they are not, and to think crime is going up when it isn’t, according to the study.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.