I believe most Americans think that crime is actually going up instead of down because they see reports of violent crimes on their media outlets. I believe media outlets have the most impact on people believing crime rates are up because we see videos of a robbery in a big city and are told that this isn't a new occurrence or the first one "this week." One main report in news and media outlets, that I see, is the rise in gun violence. This may correlate to people thinking that crime is up as a whole. When a new shooting is in the news, it affects the way people think about crime.