U.S. Senator J. D. Vance speaks with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0)
The U.S. is making progress on reducing crime and improving public safety, but you wouldn’t know it from the way many politicians and pundits talk about the issue.
Fox News has been blaming Vice President Harris for a supposed crime surge, J.D. Vance is still making up stories of pet-snatching migrants, and Donald Trump is now even calling for a Purge-inspired day of wanton violence as a show of force against crime.
Whether to drive up ratings or for personal political gain, they would rather gin up fear than deal with reality.
Data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that in the first six months of this year, homicides fell in most big cities — including several that are often smeared as hellish and crime-ravaged, such as Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Indeed, the FBI recently published 2023 crime data that shows a further decline in violent crime nationwide and was especially pronounced in big cities, which saw a 7% drop. While neither study is without its flaws, it signals a generally improving picture of public safety following the Covid-19 pandemic.
One city whose numbers especially raised eyebrows was Boston, where homicides fell by a staggering 78%. Of course, even one murder is too many, but that is real progress that’s happening and should be studied and encouraged.
Earlier this year, however, conservative media declared that Boston was on the edge of the abyss. Fox News attacked Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for allegedly having “a soft-on-crime agenda” and Newsmax accused her of “doubling down on anti-policing policies amid a crime wave.” Former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who became a conservative news commentator after his conviction in a corruption trial, called Boston’s mayor a “moron” and said her reform ideas would “fail,” while a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police said cities like Boston are turning into “absolute cesspools.”
Rather than look at what’s actually happening in Boston and other large cities, conservative media outlets simply decided that Boston was experiencing a crime wave. Boston has made progress by devising a citywide strategy to prevent crime from occurring in the first place, rather than just reacting after it happens.
Mayor Wu’s Community Safety Team engaged with residents and stakeholders like churches and hospitals to develop strategies to “address the root causes of violence through a public health lens” for a new approach emphasizing prevention, intervention, and reinvestment. The city focused on addressing the root causes of crime over simply doling out more punishments, partnered with social workers to respond to certain crises, and funded community violence intervention programs that work to interrupt potentially deadly escalations and connect people with work and housing opportunities.
Polling confirms that these approaches are in line with what voters want: A strong majority of voters favor approaches that do more to prevent crime over “tough-on-crime” policies like more policing and stricter sentencing.
The public needs to hear more about programs that work, but the discussion around crime is often settled by who is the loudest. Donald Trump’s extreme rhetoric and false promises, however, will only make people less safe. Indeed, his recent tirades attempting to connect immigrants to crime were followed by a stream of bomb threats in the city of Springfield, Ohio.
Champions of successful reform policies, meanwhile, are finding themselves playing defense due to sensationalized news coverage and malicious political attacks.
Despite predictions that crime would rise after Illinois eliminated cash bail, both crime and incarceration rates have dropped. And after coming under heavy criticism — especially from incendiary media pundits and police unions — for his efforts to reform his office and hold officers who break the law accountable, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner recently touted major declines in crime, with the city seeing a particular drop in gun violence.
While data by itself is not persuasive when people don’t feel safe going about their daily lives, we need to look to what’s actually working to improve community safety and replicate effective approaches across the country.
We know the decades spent building a system of mass incarceration and unaccountable policing delivered neither safety nor justice. Sadly, the rise in sensationalism and fear-mongering about crime deprives us all of that needed, honest conversation about what truly improves safety.
Instead of letting those who work to sow fear and division dominate the debate on crime, let’s talk about what actually works to make communities safer and more just places for us all.