Human beings are really bad at understanding statistics. Generally crime is trending down in the long term. Statistically, the world is a much safer place when it comes to interpersonal violence.

These facts are harder for us to grasp than the flashy, shocking "if it bleeds, it leads" news story. People's anecdotal knowledge of the world tends to beat out the statistics we read when we shape our perspective of the world. That leads to frequent mismatches between what people believe the world is like and what the world is actually like.

A prime example of this is the "stranger danger" public awareness campaign in the US. The effort encouraged parents to be wary of strangers that may abduct their child. The problem is that the vast and overwhelming majority of child abductions are perpetrated by family members or by individuals known to the family - not strangers.

Across the US the "anecdotal" event of being frightened by a stranger danger TV ad had a strong impact on the perceptions of many parents. A lot of those people continued to believe that the greatest risk of kidnapping came from strangers even after the (correct) contradictory statistics became widely publicized. Similarly, these "stop crime" ads can frighten people just a little bit at imagining the scenario they describe. This experience can shape perception in a large and lasting way and make people perceive the problem as being more prevalent than it is.

[–] Moneo 1 points 7 months ago

Interesting. My local transit has ads listing a number to text for help. As far as I know the number goes straight to the transit police force and not the cops and I always thought it was a good thing to reassure people (especially women traveling at night) that they can text the number if they feel unsafe and someone will be there to help them.

Would you consider this the same/a bad thing?

FYI I am pretty anti-police.