Perhaps the more appropriate question is "do you feel safer or less safe in BA than you did 1-2 years ago?" or "Do you feel safer in BA than whatever other city you want to compare?" I think that the issue (statistics aside) is that many people that live here now have the sensation/feeling/perception that it is less safe in BA than one or two years ago. This may be because the media is reporting more crime, people are talking more about crime, and/or crime has increased, doesn't really matter, if you feel less safe, you feel less safe, may or may not be justified. I personally feel it is a little misleading to simply compare crime statistics of BA with those of another city, because as has been pointed out, in many cases crime in other cities is concentrated in particular areas, and is not prevalent city wide as it seems to be here.
Statistics can be useful in many cases and help answerer several questions, but they do not always change/influence perceptions. I remember one day in the late 1980's sitting on a Continental Airlines plane ready to take off at the Stapleton (Denver, CO) airport. It was snowing like crazy and on the second trip back into the cabin to look at the wings, the Captain sort of scratched his head and decided to return to the gate area for another de-icing. This was 24 hours after a Continental Airlines plane had crashed on take off at Stapleton because the crew failed to request a second de-icing. The passengers were clearly getting edgy and very nervous. I remember I said to my seat mate "hey, statistically we couldn't be much safer, same airline, same airport, 24 hours later, no way!" Do you think this made us feel any safer, nope, but a couple double gin & tonics did. So, in the same vain as Citygirl, I don't care what the stats say, I think a lot of people feel it is less safe in BA today than a couple years ago.