BALTIMORE — One early fall evening, Julian Mack and his wife, Kristen, were walking their two dogs in a Charles Village park when a handful of kids, some teenagers, some a bit younger, started talking smack to him.

When one of the kids said something threatening about the dogs, Julian responded, and suddenly those kids — and about 10 others— rushed Julian, knocking him to the ground, punching and kicking. Kristen threw herself on top of him, and the child attackers retreated. Mack and Julian suffered abrasions and cuts, but no serious injuries.

During the attack, Kristen Mack, a Baltimore-based attorney, did not call 911. When it was over, neither she nor her husband reported it to the police.

“These were kids. I was worried they would shoot them or something,” Kristen Mack said.

Mack’s decision not to report the 2019 attack illustrates something that criminal justice researchers have long known: About half of all crimes in the U.S., and possibly most, are not reported to law enforcement.

Most crimes go unreported

From Baltimore to Los Angeles, mayors and police chiefs have been touting steep declines in crime, particularly drops in homicides, but “the picture is way more complex,” said Jillian Snider, an adjunct lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and a former New York City police officer.

“While city officials and law enforcement can boast about reported crime declining, they fail to mention that more and more victims are choosing not to report crimes.”

A report by the Pew Research Center published last year found that U.S. residents reported fewer than half of household burglaries and incidents of trespassing — 45% and 42%, respectively. Meanwhile, instances of personal theft, larceny and other types of pilfering were reported about 25% of the time.

Regarding violent crimes, robberies were reported at the highest rate (64%). That category was followed by aggravated assault, at 50%, simple assault, 37%, and rape/sexual assault, at 21%.

Crime in the U.S. has been significantly underreported since officials began keeping crime statistics, said Leonard Sipes, a crime researcher and former director for public information for the Maryland Department of Public Safety.

“Reported crime is declining in most American cities,” Sipes told The Sun.

‘Why would I bother to report it?’

People don’t report crimes for an array of reasons.

Many property crime victims feel it’s not worth taking the time to make a report if they believe the chances police will find the culprit and retrieve their property are low, Snider said. For example, if their home is broken into, and nothing of great value is taken, some people may not report the crime, particularly if there’s no video showing the thief, she said.

When it comes to assaults, many domestic violence victims choose not to make a report because their abusive partner supports the family financially, Snider said.

“When I worked for the NYPD, I went to several hundred calls where there were signs of physical abuse, and the woman said she wasn’t pressing charges,” Snider said. “Without a victim, I can’t make a report. I’d make a note in my memobook and be on my way.”

As he prepared to leave a Starbuck’s in Washington D.C.’s Chinatown district, Joshua Ederheimer — an Anne Arundel County resident and a former high-ranking police commander — politely declined an apparently homeless woman’s request for money.

Moments later, the woman rained multiple solid punches onto Ederheimer’s back and shoulder. The former cop, who at the time was an official with the Department of Homeland Security, pushed her out of the coffee shop. Then he left. He didn’t bother to report the attack.

“She was suffering from mental illness,” Ederheimer told The Baltimore Sun. “At the most, she’d be detained for a couple of days for a mental health evaluation. I wasn’t seriously hurt, and I didn’t think she was a threat to others. Why would I bother to report it?”

Fear of intimidation

In Baltimore and in many other cities, some people who are involved in criminal activity or live in neighborhoods where drug dealing and violence are common may avoid reporting crime because cooperating with the police is disdained in their community, said District 4 Councilman Mark Conway, chairman of the Baltimore City Council’s Public Safety Committee.

“That’s a longstanding culture in Baltimore that we’re still overcoming,” Conway said. In addition to not wanting to face community disapproval, some people distrust the police, he added.

Baltimore Police did not respond to a request for comment.

“Other than fear of retribution between people engaged in shady conduct (drug dealers), I think there could be fear based on the lack of trust,” said Ederheimer, a former assistant chief of police for the D.C. police department who is an assistant professor of practice and senior director of strategic partnerships at the Univerity of Virginia’s Center for Public Safety and Justice.

“Incivility has negatively affected community discourse, and that manifests itself into fear and fear of retaliation.”

Historically, rapes and sexual assaults haven’t been reported at high rates because many victims believe they will be victim-shamed, they don’t want to undergo an invasive rape exam, and they want to avoid reliving the attack, Snider said.

Fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents is another reason some crimes go unreported, Conway said. Many immigrants fear that any contact with law enforcement — even as a victim — could put them at risk of encountering ICE agents, he said.

“That is a big issue, particularly in communities that have a high Latino population,” Conway said.

Many immigrants are also wary of reporting crimes because police in their native countries are corrupt, said Odette Ramos, who represents District 14 on the Baltimore City Council. “Even though we have been very clear that our police department doesn’t cooperate with ICE, there is still a lot of fear.”

Even taking into account that many crimes are unreported, Baltimore has made significant progress in fighting violent crime, Conway said.

“We’re seeing violent crime go down, robberies are going down,” Conway said. “We started to see declines last year, and we’re seeing it again this year.”

Still, many people do not feel safe. Concerns about violent crime spiked in the U.S. in August, to 8% from 3% the previous month.

“Criminological literature tells us that most citizens judge crime by what they see, feel, taste, smell, and touch,” Sipes said. “They depend on their own experiences and those of friends and neighbors. According to Gallup and other sources, we are currently at a near-record level of fear or concern about crime.”

_____

©2025 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.