Well, and now the Internet - it doesn't help when Nextdoor is full of "suspicious person alerts" aka "there was a solicitor and I didn't like it", and a non-stop barrage of crime related stories.

I live in a city whose broader region is almost 10000 square miles, and the crime feeds report all crime in this area as occurring in "Houston", even though this region is larger than some US states. I feel like this contributes to panic because people feel like the crime is in their backyard. My local news station targets me on Facebook with stories because I'm in this MSA, but the story they hit me with could be a shooting that's easily a 1.5 hour drive from me.

Heck, here in Texas, my phone has buzzed from what they are calling "Blue Alerts" now, which is a riff off of Amber Alerts, where I've gotten notified that an officer was shot at, literally over 4 hours away from me, almost 300 miles away. It's not surprising that our society is inundated with panic.