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June 26, 2007
More than 3 in 4 Residents Feel Safe in Durham85% of Durham Residents Feel Safe in Their Respective Neighborhoods
A sense of safety among those who should know best, a community’s residents, is significant to visitors including newcomers. In a May scientific opinion poll of Durham residents, more than 75% of residents feel safe or very safe in Durham overall, an 11 to 1 ratio over those who don’t with nearly a quarter of all residents feeling very safe and 17% unsure.
Bucking twice the coverage of crime in the news as other communities and negative word of mouth impacting half of all residents in neighboring communities, more than 85% of Durham residents feel safe in their own neighborhoods, an 11 to 1 ratio over those who don’t, with only 6.8% unsure. Nearly 40% feel very safe.
But while residents are the most likely to have accurate perceptions, visitors including potential newcomers are more likely to inherit first impressions from residents commuting to Durham to work from nearby communities, who make up half of the people working here in Durham. In the same poll, more than half of the adults in the two adjacent counties would expect a negative experience in Durham from what people say in their communities. This obviously unsubtle current of negativity spreads via the water cooler and over the backyard fence and filters into the tone and weight of news that makes it way to the Internet or is broadcast nationally by the Associated Press, often because Durham appears to have twice the news, as it is the state’s only major city covered by two daily newspapers. It also infects the halls of State Government. Sense of safety is polled using The Catevo Group, a Raleigh-based company to assure objectivity. DCVB sponsors the annual poll, and the Durham Police Department obtains the safety information to benchmark one of the City and County’s results-based accountability indicators.
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