Crime is down in Baltimore, but concerns about it still pervade the congregation of Southern Baptist Church in Broadway East, the sanctuary’s pastor says.

“People are talking about crime and the ethos of the lack of safety,” Bishop Donte L. Hickman Sr. said. “For people that come out, whether it’s in the day or in the night, (they) don’t feel safe.”

Historic declines in homicides and nonfatal shootings in Baltimore drove violent crime down overall in the city by 3% in 2024, compared to 2023, and 1% over 2022. Property crime, which includes burglaries and thefts, dropped 19% compared to 2023, although the figure is still 16% greater than in 2022.

“The perception is that it’s the same,” Hickman said. “Quite frankly, I’ve had members of my church of all ages that have necessitated us to pay for security personnel to have them come to church.”

So why don’t some city residents feel any safer? The public’s perception of crime can be influenced by a variety of factors, according to experts who study the issue. Whether it’s news media giving disproportionate attention to crime or someone’s lived experience, residents’ feelings about public safety are unlikely to align with statistics.

“When people are thinking about what leads or contributes to their fear of crime, for some people maybe it’s shaped by word of mouth, but it’s also what people see and experience in different neighborhoods,” said Demar F. Lewis IV, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at University of Maryland, College Park.

He and his colleagues have conducted a study in which they surveyed more than 90 Black Baltimoreans and found that most respondents’ perceptions were “based on what they see and experience in day-to-day life,” which depended on where they lived.

There were neighborhoods that saw precipitous declines in violent crime, like South Baltimore’s Brooklyn community, which saw an approximately 30% decrease in violence in 2024 compared to the year prior. But violence remained stubbornly high in others, like Penn North, which averaged 11 violent crimes per 100 residents in 2023 and 2024.

A member of the Penn North Community Association, who asked not to be identified out of concerns for their safety, said they’ve recognized progress in the police department’s response to crime, but that bad actors from all over the city are conducting criminal activity, like dealing drugs, in their community.

“The police department, especially our neighborhood coordinating officer, they’re keeping it lower than what it used to be,” the community association member said. “This is something that comes up at the community meetings. The police are doing the best job they can to clean it up, but they’re still out there.”

Houses in Penn North once owned by Black longshoremen were left vacant when they died and their children left the community, creating blight where crime can proliferate. But the community association member said they expect improvements as investment continues to pour into the community, including a new recreation center and blight remediation initiatives.

“They’re slowly rebuilding the neighborhood,” the community association member said.

Violence ‘traumatizes the community’

Erricka Bridgeford of Baltimore Peace Movement, formerly Baltimore Ceasefire, said residents are likely swayed by many years of persistently high levels of violence.

In 2023, Baltimore recorded fewer than 300 killings for the first time in eight years. There have been many more hundreds of nonfatal shootings each year, not to mention the numerous assaults, robberies and carjackings that happen each year.

“That level of trauma, you begin to believe whatever your experience is,” said Bridgeford, who lost her brother to violence. “It’s hard for you to believe it if it’s not what you’ve personally seen.”

Homicides and nonfatal shootings haven’t impacted Southeast Baltimore to the extent they have other parts of the city, said Arch McKown, safety committee chairperson of Patterson Park Neighborhood Association. But he says his community has been afflicted of late with violent “crimes of opportunity” like carjackings and robberies.

“It’s a person who’s a stranger to them who’s come to take something from them through force or threat of force. I think that has a chilling effect on the victim. It traumatizes the family. It also traumatizes the community,” McKown said.

“People don’t perseverate on the, ‘Oh my god, is this the murder capital?’” McKown added. “It’s in the back of people’s minds. But really when you’re talking about visitors to Baltimore, it’s the violent crimes of opportunity that freak people out.”

McKown said property crimes like package theft and larceny from cars also drive dialogue.

“A lot of neighbors tell me they feel violated when those crimes happen to them. Even though they’re not physically hurt, or traumatized from the violence of it, they feel violated,” McKown said. “It’s enough of an impetus where people say: ‘We could move out to the suburbs where package theft isn’t a thing.’”

At a recent community association potluck, McKown said, crime remained on residents’ minds.

“I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and said: ‘What’s going on with the crime?’ and ‘Is it safe to walk?’” McKown said. “I think people should be aware that it’s a thing but I think that you can mitigate a lot of it personally if you take the steps to be safer when you’re out and about. And most of that is just being situationally aware.”

Benn Ray, president of the Hampden Village Merchants Association and owner of Atomic Books, believes there’s a distinction in crime perception between people who live in Baltimore and those who reside in its suburbs.

For many who call the city home, Ray said, “It’s not something that we live in constant fear and concern about.” But outside of Baltimore, he said, “it’s to a point where you can have crime taking place in Baltimore County or any of the other counties … and most of the people who live outside the city, somewhere in their mind, are blaming the city for it.”

“A downward tick in crime numbers is great. We’re all for it. But it’s not going to negate those perceptions,” Ray said, adding that media stories about crime outweigh the statistics. “It immediately undermines any effect those crime numbers have and reinforces those prejudices. It’s going to take more than a yearly downtick in crime numbers to overcome that perception.”

The media drives perceptions of crime

Ray and Bridgeford, along with experts, said media — particularly local TV stations — play an outsized role in shaping people’s perceptions of crime. Research has found that crime coverage dominates local news broadcasts.

Hickman, McKown and the Penn North Community Association member each mentioned youth crime as a topic of concern to them and their constituents.

A December study of coverage by media outlets in Baltimore during the first half of 2024, found that the news organizations gave disproportionate coverage to youth crime, “providing their audiences with skewed and misleading information.”

The report by the Sentencing Project — a progressive Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit that advocates for ending mass incarceration, looked at a sample of 100 stories taken from the nearly 2,700 stories produced by four TV news stations (WBAL, WBFF, WMAR and WJZ), as well as The Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Banner news site. Of the six media outlets, the report concluded that The Sun’s content partner, WBFF (FOX45), “relative to other news outlets, was much more likely to air sensationalized coverage highlighting youth crime incidents and perceived leniency in the justice system.”

Christoph Mergerson, assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, said news organizations have since the 19th century covered crime “in the most eye-catching way possible.”

“Newspapers and other news organizations, it’s important for them to cover issues that are of concern to the community,” said Mergerson, who teaches journalism history, adding that covering crime could be part of a publication’s mission.

“The flip side of that is that it’s good business to publish stories that are going to draw public attention. It’s good for subscriptions. It’s good for advertising revenue,” he said. “Sometimes news organizations go overboard with that.”

“Giving disproportionate attention to crime in cities with large populations of people of color can have “a racialized aspect,” Mergerson warned. “News organizations have to be careful not to play into those stereotypes … not to play into people’s existing fears.”

Bridgeford believes the media deserves substantial blame for the perception of crime in Baltimore.

“Quantity-wise, more positive things happen than negative things. But when you turn on the TV or pick up the newspaper, that’s not what it looks like,” Bridgeford said.

Shelonda Stokes, president of the Downtown Partnership, has been trying to draw investors and visitors Downtown, which had the most violent crimes of any neighborhood in 2024 and the third most per capita among neighborhoods with at least 500 residents.

Talk of crime “permeates all tables, all rooms and it hits us differently depending on your experience,” Stokes said, so it’s up to leaders to put forth a different message. Stokes’ brother, James Blue III, was shot dead in 2022 in front of a house he was renovating in North Baltimore.

“I think there is a disconnect in perception and reality. At the same time, if you don’t feel safe, then part of it is how do we start to do things to” get people to experience the best parts of Baltimore, Stokes said. “When we get them here, when we get them beyond what they think is a barrier, they love it.”

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