All the crime statistics that can be mined and all the soothing talk from public officials who mean well aren’t going to convince someone who feels unsafe that they are safe.
Despite statistics that show many kinds of crime have decreased since pandemic highs, a recent survey by the Manhattan Institute indicates about half of city residents think there is more violent crime in the city since 2020 and 75% of residents believe crime in Chattanooga is a major issue.
We believe three things are the primary drivers of the survey responses — the sudden, violent crime increase during the pandemic, the hollowing out of downtown after the pandemic with more people working remotely, and the murder of Chris Wright downtown last fall.
› Most cities in the country experienced an increase in crime during the pandemic, especially following the Black Lives Matter protests that came on the heels of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May 2020. The public, many of them ensconced in their homes at the behest of government and health officials, watched as cities were occupied, businesses looted and buildings burned. And it went on for weeks.
When the year concluded, many cities set records for various types of crime. And for many cities, those crimes either increased, stayed the same or decreased very little in 2021. The worry — and public officials across the country even voiced it — was that this was the “new normal.”