Crime victimization reporting rates climbed up three percentage points from 2020 lows.
A Gallup poll released Tuesday found that 23 percent of U.S. adults said they or a member of their household was a victim of a crime in the past year. In 2020, this rate was 20 percent — several percentage points lower than any year Gallup has measured since 2000.
This year’s rate is still the second lowest found during that time period, and notably lower than recent high-water marks between 2009 and 2016, when rates ranged from 26 to 29 percent, according to Gallup’s annual survey, which was conducted from Oct. 1 to Oct. 19.
Rates of people reporting they personally experienced crimes remained virtually the same year-to-year, rising from 13 percent last year to 14 percent this year. This marked another decrease from personal crime victimization numbers between 2009 and 2016, when rates ranged between 15 and 19 percent.
The crimes included in the Gallup survey were burglary, property theft, car theft, vandalism, aggravated robbery, physical assault and sexual assault.
The most frequent crime experienced by survey participants or members of their households was having “money or property was stolen,” followed by having a “home, car or property” vandalized.
Recent reports based on 2020 FBI data also indicated a decline in major crimes between 2019 and 2020 — though that data also showed a slight increase in violent crimes during that period, including homicides, and the largest single year increase in the homicide rate on record.
Gallup found that 5 percent of U.S. households and 3 percent of U.S. adults were victimized in at least one of the violent crimes included in the survey, figures that have remained the same over the last three years.