Justin Fox, Columnist

Why Americans Think Crime Is Worse Than It Is

Where you live and what you see on the news matters.

August 2, 2016 at 4:40 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

A crime happened. News at 11.
Photographer: Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Crime is on the rise everywhere, except in the crime statistics.

That's not quite right: The number of homicides in the 50 largest cities in the U.S. did rise 17 percent in 2015, with some cities seeing further increases this year. And though the Federal Bureau of Investigation's nationwide crime totals for 2015 won't be out till fall, the FBI reported in January that murders were up 6.2 percent and overall violent crime up 1.9 percent in the first six months of last year.