Every election season, mayors and governors step before cameras to boast that crime is down. Charts are waved, statistics cited, and carefully crafted talking points deployed to assure anxious citizens that their streets are safer than ever. Yet when you leave the press conference and walk the sidewalks of Baltimore, Chicago or Los Angeles, the reality feels far different. The gap between official numbers and lived experience is wide enough to swallow public trust whole.

The reason for this disconnect is simple: Most crime never gets reported in the first place. The Baltimore Sun recently highlighted what criminologists have known for decades — about half of all crime in America isn’t captured in police data. Burglaries are only reported 45% of the time. Simple assaults, 37%. Sexual assaults, a shameful 21%. Think about that for a moment: Nearly four out of five sexual assaults never reach the official record. Yet politicians still spin a story that safety is improving.

Why aren’t Americans calling the cops? For many, it’s because they believe the system won’t deliver justice. Victims of property crimes often assume police won’t recover stolen items. Domestic violence survivors fear financial ruin if their abuser is arrested. Immigrants worry that calling 911 might lead to a knock on the door from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In cities like Baltimore, there is a deeply rooted stigma against “snitching” that makes reporting crimes socially dangerous. And for those who simply distrust the police, staying silent feels safer than engaging.

Here’s the political problem: Declining reported crime becomes the official narrative, but citizens’ fear of crime continues to climb. Gallup recently noted Americans are near record highs in expressing concern about violent crime. This is not paranoia — it’s the rational conclusion of people who judge their safety not by government reports but by what they see in their neighborhoods, what they hear from friends, and what they experience personally.

The anecdote of Julian and Kristen Mack, attacked in Baltimore by a group of teenagers, is telling. They never called police because they feared the children might be shot. Another former Homeland Security Department official recounted being assaulted in a D.C. coffee shop but choosing not to report it because he believed nothing meaningful would happen to the mentally ill attacker. When even former law enforcement officers don’t bother reporting crime, the legitimacy of the system is in question.

So what happens next? Officials trumpet lower homicides or robberies as proof of progress. They cut ribbons on new community initiatives and point to “data-driven policing” as evidence of reform. But residents quietly arm themselves, avoid walking alone at night, and lose faith in institutions meant to protect them. A society where people stop trusting the guardians of order is a society drifting toward vigilantism.

This is not just a policing issue — it’s a governance issue. A political class eager to tout success selectively leans on crime statistics that do not represent reality. Meanwhile, communities drowning in fear feel gaslit. That disconnect breeds cynicism, disengagement and eventually rage. It is one reason why “law and order” rhetoric resonates so powerfully in American politics. People know something is wrong, even if official numbers deny it.

Rebuilding trust requires a cultural and institutional shift. First, public safety leaders must stop treating crime statistics as political props. Transparency demands acknowledging the limits of reported data and the reasons victims stay silent. Second, cities must address why people don’t report crime — fear of retaliation, distrust of police, and inefficiencies in prosecution. This means deeper community policing, stronger witness protections, and reforms in how cases are handled.

Politicians must stop assuming that fear of crime is just an irrational voter quirk. Fear is a rational response to disorder. If a mother refuses to let her children play outside because drug dealers loiter on the corner, it does not matter if homicides are technically down 12%. Her world is not safe, and no statistic will convince her otherwise.

The lesson here is timeless: Statistics do not govern — trust does. Crime numbers can be massaged, but fear cannot. If Americans no longer believe in the story their leaders are telling them, they will write their own — and it will not be a story kind to those in charge.

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