Editor's note: Daily through Jan. 25, ADN will publish poll results showing how Alaskans feel about topics ranging from the Affordable Care Act and President-elect Donald Trump's transition to crime and the opioid crisis.
With homicides up in Anchorage and criminal activity making news all over the state, it's not surprising that most Alaskans think crime has gone up. A public opinion poll conducted among 750 people last month for Alaska Dispatch News by Ivan Moore's Alaska Survey Research shows that a majority of Alaskans — 56.1 percent — think crime is rising. Another 36 percent think the numbers haven't changed, but only a tiny 5.9 percent think rates have declined.
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Regionally, only in rural Alaska does opinion dip below 40 percent among those who think crime is rising, and even there, only 16.8 percent think criminal activity has actually declined. In Anchorage, a whopping 71.1 percent of respondents think crime is higher compared to a year ago, and only 2.9 percent believe it has declined. The numbers worsen among Alaskans who have lived in the state the longest; more Alaskans here for less than 15 years think crime is about the same as it was. More women than men in Alaska think crime has gotten worse.
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See the full set of questions and cross tabs for this survey question here. The poll was conducted as part of the quarterly Alaska Survey.
The Alaska Survey is a statewide public opinion survey project consisting of 750 interviews with randomly selected Alaskans aged 18+. 500 interviews are conducted on cellphones, 250 on landlines. With the exception of rural Alaska, all numbers for this study are generated randomly onto the set of active Alaska telephone prefixes, with no calling done to lists or phone book records. Survey completions are apportioned appropriately by geographic area in Alaska, and collected data is weighted to make the sample representative of the Alaska population by gender, ethnicity and age, according to latest Census estimates, and also by land/cell phone status. The full sample of 750 (MOE +3.6%) contains a subsample of 624 registered voters (MOE +3.9%).
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