Those views of crime weren’t formed in a vacuum. The Seattle Police Department’s 2021 crime report showed there were 5,340 reports of violent crime in 2021, up 20% from 2020’s 4,466 reports. There were 42,049 reports of property crime in 2021, a 9% increase from 2020’s 38,714.
Public safety and policing are also a central topic among Seattle politicians. City Attorney Ann Davison was elected in November on a tough-on-crime promise for more prosecutions. Councilmember Sara Nelson has made hiring more police officers one of her highest priorities. One of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s first actions in office was to call for a police crackdown downtown and in the Little Saigon neighborhood and followed it with a continued police focus on downtown called Operation New Day.
Thirty-six percent of the Crosscut/Elway Poll respondents said they themselves had been a victim of either a property crime (28%), personal crime (2%) or both (6%) in the past year. But 60% said as far as they know, someone in their neighborhood had experienced a crime, possibly illustrating a gap between perceptions and narratives of crime and the reality a majority experience.
Staci Wilkie is a lifelong Lake City resident who responded to the poll. Wilkie, who works downtown, said that to her mind, crime is unequivocally worse than it used to be in Seattle, and she is deeply bothered by the drug use and shoplifting she sees downtown. A carjacking in Northgate has her especially worried.
“That’s close to home and it’s scary,” Wilkie said. “My head is on a swivel constantly. Before I was cautious downtown. Now I’m cautious everywhere I go, even at home.”
Asked to pick from a list of potential causes of crime and say whether they think they are major, minor or noncontributing factors, respondents put a lack of mental health and addiction services at the top of the list. Eighty-five percent of respondents said that was a major factor in Seattle’s crime. The next highest contributor was homelessness, with 67% of respondents calling it a major factor. Economic conditions were cited as a major factor by 63%, while 56% pointed to political leadership, and 53% cited a lack of law enforcement.
Virginia Salles, a homeowner in Rainier Beach who participated in the poll, said she thinks crime is a little worse now than it has been in recent years, but nowhere near as bad as it was in Seattle in the ’80s and early ’90s. She blames the city’s widening wealth gap for contributing to crime.
“We live in a plutocracy now,” said Salles. “The gap between the very rich and the working class is getting bigger. But also the gap between working people and poor people is getting bigger.”
When asked where they think the city should direct its resources to deal with crime, 92% of respondents said funding for more addiction and mental health services. Eighty-one percent want to see more de-escalation training for police officers, 80% want more social programs to address crime’s root causes, 75% want to add more nonpolice staffing, and 73% want to see an increase in court staffing to process the caseload.
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May 02, 2022 at 07:04PM
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How does Seattle feel about crime? It's complicated - Crosscut
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