“According to a 2014 Gallup poll, 70 percent of Americans think that the crime rate is increasing, up from 63 percent in 2013. But the reality is that America is getting safer. The national crime rate is about half of what it was at the peak in 1991. … Nnow that crime rates are so low, people have ‘very little direct experience of crime,’ so their perceptions are mainly shaped by news media and entertainment.”