U.S. Crime Victimization ‘Slightly Up’ From Last Year

While crime victimization rates hit a low in 2020, with 20 percent of adults saying they or a member of their household were victims of crime in the past 12 months, the percent of adults saying the same for this past year has risen to 23 percent, according to results from Gallup’s annual Crime Survey, conducted in October and released on Tuesday. 

While many worry about any slight uptick in victimization, Gallup researchers are quick to note that these household crime victimization rates remain lower than they were in 2009 to 2016, when rates ranged from 26 to 29 percent of Americans. 

Further data from the Gallup survey says that 14 percent of U.S. adults say they were personally victimized in a crime, either burglary, property theft, car theft, vandalism, aggravated robbery, physical assault and sexual assault.

“The incidence of these crimes has not varied much in recent years, but all crimes are now at least as common, if not more common, than in 2020,” the researchers note. “The biggest increase observed this year was three percentage points for burglary, with 5 percent saying their home or apartment was broken into in the past year.”

Looking at the data further, the Gallup researchers note that Americans who say they live in either a “big” or a “small” city were significantly more likely to be victimized by a crime (30 percent) compared to suburban, town, or rural residents (19 percent).

See Also: Urban Violent Crime Remains High During Pandemic December 2020. 

According to Gallup’s data research, violent crime rates are also higher in urban areas. 

The surveys indicate that 7 percent of city residents versus 4 percent of suburban and rural residents say they were the victim of a violent crime in the past year. Those figures essentially match the historical averages of 6 percent among city residents, 4 percent among suburban and 3 percent among rural residents.

Of the survey results, Americans were most likely to say they had experienced theft — with 14 percent saying it was money or physical property stolen from them or another household member in the past year. 

Twelve percent of Americans noted that they were victims of vandalism. This sparks interest, as vandalism is highly correlated with hate crimes, of which we know has spiked in the last 12 months. 

Overall, Americans are least likely to say a member of their household has been the victim of any of the three violent crimes asked about in the survey, which include physical assault (3 percent), sexual assault (2 percent) and aggravated robbery (2 percent).

Additional Reading: ‘Unprecedented’ Violent Crime Spike Reported for 2020