As major cities around New Jersey and the country report sharp drops in their crime numbers, a new poll finds that New Jerseyans’ perceptions of crime in their neighborhoods differs substantially based on race.
According a Rutgers University poll released on Tuesday, 15% of Black residents say crime has worsened where they live over the last five years, compared to 31% of white residents. At the same time, 20% of Black people say crime has gotten better in their neighborhoods, but just 6% of white residents say the same. Most of both groups — about 62% of white people and 60% of Black people — said things had stayed the same.
Hispanic residents were the least likely — 47% — to say things had stayed the same. Of Hispanic residents polled, 16% thought crime was getting better in their neighborhoods, but 34% thought it was getting worse.
“This is what they perceive things to be, which sometimes doesn’t always jive with reality,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She said the poll results haven’t been compared to the crime rates of where the respondents live.
The researchers also observed a significant divide based on political partisanship. The poll found that 42% of Republicans say crime in their neighborhoods has worsened, while 62% of Democrats say it has stayed the same.
More Republicans also said they worried about being the victims of crime – 52% of Republican respondents — compared to independents (41%) and Democrats (32%).
Koning said the center found it “unsurprising” that more Republicans said crime has gotten worse, given the partisan political rhetoric of the moment.
“This really plays into those more national level politics issues of law and order that we’ve seen so prevalent in recent election cycles,” she said.
The results of the poll arrive as cities in New Jersey and around the country that were hit by crime spikes during the COVID-19 pandemic…
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