Perceptions and realities of crime in Towson

Many years ago my next-door neighbor got mugged in his driveway. A guy followed him home from an ATM in Towson. I slept through the whole thing. It was warm enough that my windows were open, and my neighbor’s driveway was right out my window, so I should have heard. But I didn’t.

As best I know, the mugging was never broadcast on TV or written up in the paper, and it was before the popularization of social media. This was even before the internet got popular. That is to say, few people ever knew that my next-door neighbor was mugged.

With new ways to report and amplify neighborhood crime, that’s less likely to be the case today.

It has been rough lately for Towson. In November, Masoud Athari, a Towson restaurant owner, was attacked after he tried to stop people from urinating in front of his restaurant. Since then at least three people have been killed in Towson. A mass shooting in December off Loch Raven Boulevard left one person dead and injured nine others.

After the assault at the restaurant, a local media outlet said it was a “sobering reminder” of the need for increased diligence, and said the incident put a spotlight on “growing concerns about public safety and behavior in urban areas.”

So is Towson getting more dangerous?

Violence sells

Violence has been popular for as long as there have been ways to talk about it. It has been a mainstay of ancient Greek literature, of the plays of Shakespeare, of modern cinema, and of social media. Violence sustains audience attention, says Canada’s Centre for Digital Media, and “conventional wisdom” holds that violence is good business. The phrase “If it bleeds, it leads” — meant to designate which story should earn top billing in the news — was coined more than a century ago.

That said, by most measures, Towson is a safe place to live.

According to the online database NeighborhoodScout, 2.22 out of 1,000 Towson residents were victims of a violent crime in 2022, with “violent crime” including murder, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. That’s about half the state rate of 3.98 per 1,000, says the website, and near the average for similar-sized communities. It’s also below the rate for the nation as a whole. Baltimore County data for Towson and elsewhere in the county show that violent crime changed little from 2017 to 2020. (The County changed how it reported crime data in 2021, complicating comparisons.)

Census data indicate that Towson has grown by several thousand people over the past decade. Towson University is now one of the largest universities in Maryland, with more than 19,000 students. More people generally means more crime, though the crime rate may not increase.

When total crimes are considered — combining violent crime and property crime — NeighborhoodScout finds that Towson is safer than just 21 percent of communities nationwide, which is another way of saying it is less safe than nearly 80 percent.

Violent crime has declined

Violent crime is down nationally. The FBI found that national murder rates in 2023 dropped by 11.6 percent over the previous year, rape by 9.4 percent, aggravated assault by 2.8 percent, and robbery by 0.3 percent. Baltimore City just experienced its lowest homicide rate in years, with just over 200 homicides recorded in 2024, down from more than 300 just a few years ago.

So why then does it feel to some like violent crime has increased?

In 2024, nearly 60 percent of Americans were of the view that crime should be a top priority for the incoming president, an increase of more than 10 percentage points over those listing crime as a top priority heading into the 2020 election.

The impact of social media

We now have more ways to share news about and comment on crime in our neighborhoods.

Facebook, launched in 2004, today has more than three billion users. Nextdoor, the neighborhood social media platform that boasted more than 88 million “verified neighbors” at the end of 2023, is now active in eleven countries. In 2005, one year after the launch of Facebook, the Pew Research Center found that just five percent of American adults used social media. By 2019 that figure had grown to 72 percent.

Last year I received an email — now used by just about everyone but once a rarity — from a friend, decrying the senseless attack on Athari, the Towson restaurant owner. In the time before email, it’s less likely that I would have heard about the attack.

My friend readily acknowledges that the idea that Towson has grown less safe has at least as much to do with perception as reality — but he says perceptions are “vital.” He also thinks Towson has gotten less safe. He cites Towson Town Center in particular, the mall that can make headlines for robberies and assaults. His brother, he says, avoids it.

Towson is “absolutely,” safe, says Mike Ertel, Baltimore County Councilman for District 6, which includes Towson. Others aren’t so sure. Ertel co-hosted a recent forum where nearly 200 people gathered to discuss the mass shooting off Loch Raven Boulevard. Despite assurances that the shooting was an isolated incident, many of the people who attended the forum didn’t feel safe.

Ertel thinks social media is at least partly to blame. “You have a device in your hand that you get instant information on a constant basis, whether you want it or not, whether you’re looking for it or not,” he says, but adds that the very things that make crimes so easy to report — GPS, cameras, the ubiquity of cell phones — also make them harder to commit.

Athari, who has run his restaurant, Kerb, for several years and who has been in Towson for several more, thinks there are worse places to operate a business. “The police are doing a great job in Towson,” he said nearly two months after the assault. One of the assailants has been caught, and is being held without bond at the Baltimore County Detention Center. Compared to other places, Athari said of Towson, “it’s not that bad.”