Crime is on the rise in cities across America and the left is asleep at the wheel. Democrats are set to be routed in the upcoming midterm elections, but instead of getting onboard with tough-on-crime policies, they’ve focused their efforts on measures that are wildly out of touch with even their own voters.
To start, Democrats have their pandemic lockdowns to thank for at least some of the crime crisis. Carjackings are up in cities, which experts attribute to teenagers who are not in school or extracurricular programs. James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, said that the pandemic has given people too much free time, which can lead to an uptick in crime. New York City has seen major crimes increase by nearly 40 percent this year, and coincidentally also has some of the strictest pandemic measures.
Even though Americans are clamoring for a crackdown on crime, Democrats have spent the past few years going all in on criminal justice reform. They’ve advocated for “defunding the police,” which in its most generous interpretation means redirecting funds to social workers. Their bail reform policies have made it much easier for violent and career criminals to get out of jail after committing a crime. Plenty of these individuals, such as the Waukesha man who mowed down bystanders at a Christmas parade, commit even more heinous acts of violence after being released.
Left-wing prosecutors are empowered and funded by activist organizations that encourage them to be lenient on crime. Frank James, the Brooklyn subway shooter, was able to own a firearm despite a long and violent criminal history because he was never convicted of a felony. Gerald Brevard III, who went on a shooting spree in March, was previously let off on two misdemeanors by a progressive prosecutor after kidnapping and attempting to rape a hotel maid.
Instead of focusing on the perilous effects of “criminal justice reform,” President Joe Biden claimed to be prioritizing Americans’ safety by banning homemade firearms. The left refers to these as “ghost guns,” which is a broad term referring to firearms that don’t have serial numbers and are thus untraceable by the government. Between 2016 and 2020, homemade guns were used in just 0.36 percent of homicides.
Another great place for Democrats to actually make headway on rising crime rates would be to question why the FBI is so bad at its job. It seems a majority of mass shooters over the past two decades were known to the FBI — the Brooklyn subway shooter, Parkland, Fort Hood, Pulse nightclub, FedEx, Boulder, the list goes on. The FBI is apparently too busy kidnapping Gretchen Whitmer or labeling parents protesting at school board meetings domestic terrorists to stop mass shooting events. Helpfully, the Biden Department of Justice released an “Equity Action Plan” today, another efficient use of resources.
How many times have the Democrats accused Republicans of “literally killing people”? Yet they enable to worst in our society to rob, hurt, rape, and kill with their own backward crime policies.
