Fully 7 out of 10 New York City residents feel less safe now compared to before the COVID-19 era, according to a poll from the Siena College Research Institute.
For the survey, 70% of residents had a more favorable opinion of New York's safety outlook before the pandemic period of 2020-21. Only 3% said they feel safer today, as opposed to three years ago.
Also, in a separate question, 76% of New York respondents fear they will be the victim of a violent crime; and 69% expressed concern their neighborhood could eventually become the target of gun violence, due to factors such as race, religion, or ethnicity.
The survey covered a 10-day period from May 22 to June 1 and included a sample size of 1,000 New York City residents.
The timing of the poll comes less than a month after the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York grocery store, and nearly two months after a gunman injured at least 20 people in a Brooklyn subway train shooting.
On Wednesday, a number of New Yorkers, either present or past, chimed in on The Hill's writeup of the Siena survey.
One commenter wrote: "Being a New Yorker, I'd like to say this poll is a complete lie. We are far less safe and everyone feels it."
One commenter offered this response: "This is just [Mayor Eric] Adams propaganda to get money for cops. There was literally a whole breakdown in Bloomberg today about while crime has ticked up, not only is New York still the safest major city in America by a mile, it is substantially safer than virtually every small town as well."
Another commenter wrote: "It probably has more to do with the out of control riots that pervaded the City prior to any pandemic, it was an epic failure in the part of law enforcement ... and nothing has improved. I know of people who now refuse to use the subway because of the rampant crime going on in NYC."
After the Buffalo and Brooklyn shooting incidents, Mayor Adams called for a "national response" to rising violence.
"We're going to continue to do our job, but there is some assistance that's going to be needed in our city, such as an empowering ATF," said Adams, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Added Adams: "There's so many things that we could do to assist the cities across America, particularly New York City, to make sure that we’re a safe place for our residents."
The Siena College survey's margin for error is 3.1 percentage points.
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