I think what makes the crime level seem so horrible is social media.   Nothing like a few minutes of Scanner Joe on Facebook to feed the fear.   Throw in a couple of messages from the APD via Nixle.us and a quick read of ADN, KTUU, and KTVA online and the paranoia is complete.   There are good people and bad people in Anchorage.   Just as there has been for my 50 years here.  The main thing that has changed is that realtime has been added to the mix.  By the way, we never did recover our Ford Falcon- stolen from behind the house in 1972.