Poll: Most Minnesotans believe their communities are safe, but 1 in 3 say they are becoming less so

One quarter of Minnesota adults often avoid activities due to fear of crime, including half of Black women

by CRAIG HELMSTETTER | Jan. 14, 2025

A new poll finds that most Minnesotans think that their communities are “always” or “mostly” safe, but one-third think their communities are becoming less safe. In addition, one-quarter say they avoid activities due to fear of crime.

The “Minds of Minnesotans” survey of 3,399 adults was conducted by Lumaris Research from July 20 through Nov. 22, 2024. The questions concerning public safety were paid for by Wilder Research as a part of their Minnesota Compass community indicators project.

Project director Allison Liuzzi said, “We fielded these questions to get at Minnesotans’ feelings of safety in their communities, one of four new public safety measures on Minnesota Compass. Perceived safety was identified as an important, subjective measure of public safety – alongside other objective measures like crime rates and preventable deaths.”

1 in 5 Minnesotans say their community is always safe

When asked how much of the time their communities are safe, 19% of Minnesotans say “always” and 66% say “mostly.” Most of the remainder, 12%, say “sometimes,” with only 2% indicating “rarely” and 1% indicating “never.”

When looking at the responses of different groups of Minnesotans, the responses of Black Minnesotans stand out the most. While a strong majority of Black Minnesotans (65%) indicate that their community is either always or mostly safe, that percentage is significantly lower than is the case among either Asian or white Minnesotans (86% and 89%, respectively).

A somewhat smaller proportion of those living in the state’s two largest cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, say that their community is always or mostly safe (75%), than is the case among those living in the suburbs of the Twin Cities seven-county region or among those living in more rural Greater Minnesota (93% and 89%, respectively).

1 in 3 say their community is becoming less safe

When asked whether their community is “…safer, stayed the same, or become less safe” over the past three years, half of Minnesota adults indicated “stayed the same,” while 32% indicated “less safe.” Only 7% indicated that their community had become safer.

While Black Minnesotans were most likely to say that their community is unsafe, they are also the group most likely to report that their community has become safer over the past three years. Nineteen percent of Black Minnesotans reported that safety had improved in their community, as did 12% of Hispanic Minnesotans. This compares to only six percent of Asian Minnesotans and five percent of white Minnesotans.

By generation, the youngest adults in the state, Gen Z, had the highest percentage of people reporting that safety had improved over the past three years. That generation also had the largest proportion indicating that they “don’t know” whether safety in their community had improved, worsened, or stayed the same (23% compared to 11% of all respondents).

Another notable finding in Minnesotans’ perceptions of whether safety has been improving or worsening over the past three years is the relationship to political affiliation. Forty-two percent of Republicans and those who lean Republican say that their community has become less safe over the past three years, while only 23% of Democrats and those who lean Democrat say that this is the case. Both the U.S. presidency and the state governorship has been held by a Democrat over the three year period referred to in the survey question.

1 in 4 avoid activities due to their fears of crime

Three-quarters of Minnesotans indicated that fear of crime never or rarely influences their choices of activities, but one-quarter indicated that fear of crime leads them to avoid activities either somewhat often or very often.

A fear of crime impacts the choices of activities for a larger proportion of:

• Women than men.

• Black, Indigenous and Hispanic Minnesotans than Asian or white Minnesotans.

• Generation Z than all other generations, especially the so-called “Silent Generation” or those aged 79 or older.

• Those who live in Minneapolis or St. Paul than either those living in the suburbs within the Twin Cities seven-county region or Greater Minnesota.

• Republicans and independents than Democrats

Since fear of crime is related to gender as well as both race and area of residence, we compared the responses of both men and women within the two racial groups with enough respondents to do so: non-Hispanic whites and Black Minnesotans. We also compared the responses of men and women in three major regions of the state.

In both comparisons, higher proportions of women than men reported that fear of crime prevented them from doing things that they would like to do. This was particularly acute among Black women, with 31% indicating that fear of crime impacted their choices somewhat often, and another 18% indicating that fear of crime impacted their choices very often. That combined total of 49% was higher than that for Black men at 35%, white women at 26%, and white men at 18%.

Similarly, when looked at by area of the state, fear of crime was most commonly reported among women living in Minneapolis or St. Paul, where nearly 39% indicated that it prevented them from doing what they wanted to do — including the 11% who reported feeling that way very often. On the other end of the spectrum, fewer than 1 in 5 men living in Greater Minnesota indicated that a fear of crime prevented them from doing things that they would like to do.

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