By Dr Chloe Keel, Dr Kai Lin and Prof Murray Lee
Crime has re-emerged as a headline issue in the 2025 Federal election, with the Coalition leaning into concerns about crime in Queensland and the Northern Territory in particular.
Public perceptions of crime are often shaped less by actual crime rates and more by broader anxieties about social change and uncertainty which are often articulated in public discourses as an unease about cultural diversity.
In countries with culturally diverse populations, such as Australia and the United States, ‘law-and-order’ rhetoric often calls for supporting aggressive crime policies at the expense of the liberties and opportunities of many racial and ethnic groups, a large proportion of whom are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants.
The policies are at times effective at stoking public fear to win votes.
Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration and crime was a significant part of his campaign for his presidential candidacy campaigns in 2016 and 2024. He repeatedly made false and misleading statements about immigrants, including that they were ‘criminals and rapists’.
While such approaches have been successful in the past, the success of these fear-based strategies is far from guaranteed.
At the same time, what we call “protective factors”—such as strong communities, education, and social cohesion—can reduce the influence of political narratives that attempt to define crime in narrowly punitive or racialised terms.
How politics shapes safety concerns across borders
While we often compare countries like the US and Australia, recent research reveals interesting differences in what makes people feel unsafe across similar nations and over time.
In Australia, a clear pattern emerged. By 2018, supporters of left-leaning parties (Labor/Green) reported feeling significantly safer than other voters – a division that didn’t exist in 2012. However, this gap disappeared when researchers accounted for attitudes about immigrants and crime. This suggests that in Australia, blaming immigrants for crime problems drives feelings of unsafety for many people.
The United States shows a completely different pattern. Between 2011 and 2017, Republicans (conservatives) consistently reported feeling safer than other Americans – the opposite of Australia’s trend. Unlike in Australia, this American political divide couldn’t be explained by attitudes about immigrants and crime. While immigration still affects safety perceptions in the US, it appears to work through different mechanisms than in Australia.
Social connectedness also plays different roles in each country. In Australia, trust in others and confidence in public institutions consistently influenced safety perceptions. In the US, these factors had little impact.
Social scientists have observed that in modern societies, responsibility for personal safety has increasingly shifted from the government to individuals. This trend is especially strong in the United States, where market-focused policies dominate.
By contrast, research from Europe suggests that stronger social welfare systems can reduce safety concerns by addressing underlying economic anxieties. Australia’s more robust social support appears to foster community empowerment and greater feelings of safety, creating a positive cycle where social cohesion helps reduce fear.
Has this approach failed in Australia before?
While fear of crime is often used for political gain, it can fail when protective factors, such as media fragmentation, community resilience and social cohesion, counter fear-based messaging.
In the 2018 election in the Australian state of Victoria, crime and law-and-order became prominent political issues, particularly through racialized discourse about ‘African gangs’. At the time Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claimed:
“The reality is people (in Melbourne) are scared to go out at restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs, home invasions, and cars are stolen and we just need to call it for what it is. Of course, it is African gang violence. […] We need to weed out the people who have done the wrong thing, deport them where we can, but where they are Australian citizens, we need to deal with them according to the law.”
In this case, law-and-order politics failed to gain decisive political traction. Voters weren’t swayed.
A study after the election found a fear of crime was relatively rare and in Victoria, lower than what is often found in research. The research found that reports of crime in the media and comments by political leaders such as Dutton were distal to their own experiences. One participant in this study said:
“And sorry, I dine out all the time […] and I just think all that reporting of home invasions and illegals and African gangs is really unhealthy and it creates an atmosphere of fear.”
Media fragmentation and diversification continues to challenge the primacy of political primary definers in unpredictable ways.
As such, electoral strategies that seek to leverage fear of crime and community insecurity need to be understood in the context of broader individual, community and social protective factors that might mitigate fear of crime.Further
Today’s media environment is even more fragmented. With more diverse news sources and online platforms, political actors can no longer define the narrative unchallenged. This means fear-based messaging—especially when it overreaches—can backfire.
What’s at stake in 2025?
It’s important to remember the public’s fear of crime often reflects underlying broader anxieties about social change and uncertainty more than actual crime statistics.
As Australia’s 2025 federal election intensifies, the Liberal National Party’s pivot to ‘law and order’ rhetoric represents a perennial strategy: using worry about crime to influence voters. Given the current cost of living crisis and the broader sense of global uncertainty, this may be an effective strategy. In the last week of the election campaign we are seeing conservative parties lean into an unease about cultural diversity.
Understanding these dynamics is critical for voters, policymakers and advocates navigating an increasingly fear-driven political environment.
This matters because when political campaigns tie safety to ethnicity or immigration, they don’t just shift policy—they reshape how people perceive their neighbours and communities.
The results of this election will say a lot—not just about crime or public safety—but about how Australians feel about diversity, identity, and belonging. As we head to the polls on May 3, we’re not just voting on policies. We’re voting on whose fears count, and whose voices matter.
