Confidence in law enforcement grows, but the world doesn’t feel any safer, according to Gallup’s latest Law and Order Report, published on October 31. The report seeks to measure the public perception of personal safety and faith in the rule of law.
While confidence in local police saw a slight increase, progress on global security remains stalled. Feelings of safety around the world “scored an 83 out of a possible 100 on the Law and Order Index in 2022— unchanged from 83 the previous year,” Julie Ray, Content Senior Consultant and Managing Editor for World News reports.
The index is combined based on responses to whether people are confident in their local police, feel safe in their neighborhoods, and were victims of theft or assault in the past year. Seven in ten (71%) respondents across the globe say they feel safe when walking alone at night.
Tajikistan (96/100) is the most secure and Liberia (49/100) replaces Afghanistan as the least secure country. The U.S. and Canada are trending downward, scoring 85 out of 100 in 2017 and 83 out of 100 in 2022.
“Notably, the score for the U.S. and Canada — which suffered one of the biggest regional declines in 2021 — did not change statistically in 2022, but the countries continued to head in the wrong direction,” Ray writes. “Perceptions of safety declined most in Canada, where the index score dropped four points in 2022 to a new low of 83— matching the score for the U.S., which remained stagnant from the previous year.”
For the report’s methodology, click here. To receive the full report, click here.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
