Study: Philadelphians less worried about crime

By: Aaron Moselle
Philadelphia residents are less concerned about crime than they were a year ago, according to a city-based poll released this week.

By: Aaron Moselle
newsroom@whyy.org

Philadelphia residents are less concerned about crime than they were a year ago, according to a city-based poll released this week.

Listen:
[audio: 100223AMPEW.mp3]

The Pew Charitable Trusts-sponsored poll shows just 35% of those questioned said crime was the biggest problem with the city. That’s down from 45% at this time last year.

Larry Eichel is project director of the Philadelphia Research Initiative, which authored the report. He says this year’s drop in high-profile crimes may be fueling the change in attitude.

Eichel: By that I mean when a police officer is killed in the line of duty or when a small child is caught in the crossfire outside a school. We’ve had crimes like that in the past. We haven’t had any of those in the past twelve months or so.

Major crimes in the city were down about 10% last year from the previous year.

Poll results were gathered from responses from 1600 city residents during the first two weeks of January.