'It stays in your mind': When crime goes viral, fear of crime goes up

Ekim Kaya, a tech entrepreneur and car fanatic, was driving his Lamborghini to the Manhattan Classic Car Club one evening a couple of years ago when a scooter sideswiped him on the West Side Highway. Kaya got out, expecting to exchange information. Instead the two young men on the scooter assaulted him, and stole his $240,000 car. 

Police later that night found the Lamborghini crashed at a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Bronx. The carjackers were never caught. And Kaya, who lives in Tribeca, now avoids driving in the city. He’s concerned about all crimes, not just carjackings, and he asks his fiance not to use the subway.  

“I’m -- especially at night -- always on alert,” he said. 

But Kaya admits he’s not just afraid of crime because he was a victim. It’s not even just because of the spike in violent crimes in New York City since the onset of the pandemic. Some of his fear is rooted in what he sees on TikTok every day -- “people breaking into businesses, stealing stuff, and being able to get away with it.”

Polls indicate a growing sense of the city as dangerous.  Major crime totals are in fact up compared to 2019, before the pandemic, when crime was at historic lows. And so far this year six out of seven major crimes -- rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny of a vehicle -- are seeing double-digit percentage increases over last year.

But what has increased perhaps more than crime is the fear of crime. In 2001, all categories of major crimes were higher than in 2021. But in February of that year, just 36% of New York City voters described crime as a very serious problem, a Quinnipiac University poll found. The same pollsters asked New Yorkers the same question this February, and even though crime rates are lower, 74% called crime a very serious problem.

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