The public salience of crime, 1960–2014: Age–period–cohort and time–series analyses†

The public salience of crime has wide-ranging political and social implications; it influences public trust in the government and citizens’ everyday routines and interactions, and it may affect policy responsiveness to punitive attitudes. Identifying the sources of crime salience is thus important. Two competing theoretical models exist: the objectivist model and the social constructionist model. According to the first, crime salience is a function of the crime rate. According to the second, crime salience is a function of media coverage and political rhetoric, and trends in crime salience differ across population subgroups as a result of differences in their responsiveness to elite initiatives. In both theories, period-level effects predominate. Variation in crime salience, however, may also reflect age and cohort effects. Using data from 422,504 respondents interviewed between 1960 and 2014, we first examine the nature of crime salience using hierarchical age–period–cohort (HAPC) models and then analyze period-level predictors using first differences. We find that 1) crime salience varies mostly at the period level; 2) crime salience trends are parallel (cointegrated) across demographic, socioeconomic, and partisan groups; and 3) crime salience trends within every population subgroup are most consistent with the constructionist model. The crime rate does not exert a significant effect in any subgroup.