As Trump expands his powers using crime as a justification, neither sensationalists nor denialists have a monopoly on the truth about the nation's crime problem
Very well said, and a very important point. Both truths matter. Yes, Trump is engaging in transparently political theater. But he is not wrong about the shockingly high levels of crime that Americans are accustomed to.
As a DC native who grew up in the 1980s, I can attest to the impact that crime has on everything. When people don’t feel safe, it is hard for them to focus on anything else. It dominates every discussion. Progressives who deny that reality or scold people for being concerned about safety will continue to lose elections. A primary objective of any government is to keep people safe.
I will tell you: I was attacked last night in DC. I don’t find what Trump is doing to he effective. But when I hear some progressive say “AKSHUALLY if you look at the data this way there’s not a problem” they’ve lost me, that is just a non starter. There’s no reason Americas capital city should not be like Tokyo, Singapore, or Copenhagen in terms of public safety.
Americans put up with too much public disorder and violence (including gun violence) and it doesn’t have to be that way.
I don't think Copenhagen or Tokyo has blacks. Sorry if that sounds racist but it's the truth. We had like 83 homicides where I live last year and 95% of shooter and victim was black. I bet you attacker was a black guy. Am I right? Maybe it's culture. Maybe it's the failed welfare system. Maybe it's something else. But that is the cause. It isn't the Copenhagen cops are much better. Or after school programs. It's black ghetto culture.
Quality of life offenses have skyrocketed since 2020 and before. It’s the stuff you see on your commute, in the subways, at CVS, etc. No one cares that there’s a couple dozen less murders in the worst part of any given city. They care that an insane man in the park is threatening their children with no repercussions. You’re overcomplicating it.
Democrats need to admit that crime in big cities continues to be a major problem and to quit allowing Trump to take control of this issue. Why not make fighting criminals a major priority of the Democratic Party and especially of Democratic mayors? Why are they always on their back foot on this issue? There is no political logic to being seen as soft on crime when most of the victims of crime are the very minorities that Democrats are supposed to champion. The single most important thing Democrats could do to save the lives of young black men would be to reinstitute the policing policy of “stop and frisk” in black neighborhoods to stop the blight of illegal guns. This would help stem the tide of murders of blacks that fill the nightly news in every major city in America. These kids would quickly get the message and quit carrying illegal guns. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and yet commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate an astounding 50 times higher than the average American. They are also the primary victims of these murders. We need to save their lives in spite of all the ACLU bullshit niceties.
'Crime is caused by poverty so it is never the criminal's fault' and 'victims matter' cannot coexist. Dems' own activists will force them to pick a side, and it won't (can't be) be the victims.
So the result of improvement in violent crime rates while the president sends the military into American streets is to chastise the left over anecdotal rhetoric instead of the right for overreaching? Lmfao, this is no different than Morning Joe telling Pritzker to facilitate the illegal occupation of his state because the admin feels like it.
This piece contributes nothing to the wider discussion beyond pearl clutching over improving crime rates. Yeah, we have a violence problem compared to the rest of the world, we also have a police violence problem compared to the rest of the world, and a manufacturing problem, and an education problem, and an infrastructure problem, most of which would shock other similarly developed nations. America is not unique in this regard. What is unique, is that we attribute to culture and language policing what could be resolved through divestment from militarized police and unified dissidence against furthering the police state. All this smoke for one dude who said something you disagreed with and nothing for deploying the American military in American streets as an arbitrary show of force.
Yes, and one thing leftists seem to miss is that crime prevention is anti-racist. African Americans suffer from crime at a rate multiple times higher than whites, so reductions in crime disproportionately benefit African Americans. By that measure, more cops on the beat (or any other anti-crime measure that works) is effectively anti-racist.
I know several women who won’t ride the Metro alone at night. This brings the pool of victims down and keeps the statistics artificially low.
In my 45 years as a Metro rider, I’ve seen tons of crime but I’ve never called it in. The DC metro is too deep and no one will arrive in time. So why bother? The station managers just look the other way. No one’s getting prosecuted. And some deranged “activist “ is a DC progressive hero for being arrested for misusing a student fare card (you can’t be over 21 to have it & “victim” is 28).
The “crime is declining” meme just makes no sense if you live here. A young person has no fear of the law and knows they can get away with almost anything.
Think of it this way: imagine if shoplifting was a reported and chargeable offense. And you lock up your inventory like CVS does. Well, sure, shoplifting will decline. But people will buy from Amazon because it’s less of a hassle. Prices will rise. The store that cannot lock up its inventory goes out of business. But statistically, crime is down in D.C. The criminally-inclined might find greener horizons in neighboring Maryland.
I do not want to be a fatalist, but this is something I simply do not see being resolved.
- My family members in rural PA, who have never been to Chicago and will never go to Chicago, want the feds to take over the "killing fields" of Chicago.
- If the people who live in Chicago feel the "cure" (federal intervention) is worse than the "disease" (the level of crime), they will reject it.
- My family members in rural PA, who have never been to Chicago and will never go to Chicago, will see this as evidence that liberal cities are crime-ridden and the people there protect criminals.
Is there any resolution other than "if you don't like it, don't go there"?
I can confirm a lot of Zaid's general observations since I lived most of my life in the places or regions he mentions (Seoul, Baltimore, D.C., Atlanta). The level of violent crime and general public disorder is like night and day whenever I go back to Korea. When you live in a city like Baltimore, you are often making small calculations about safety, especially at night and that stress adds up. Compared to Korea, you wouldn't think twice about the safety of even your grandmother riding public transit at night. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things wrong with Korean culture, but public safety is not one of them.
As someone on the far left, it is annoying to see that it has become common among wealthier democrats to treat public safety like a right-wing boogey man even though both the perpetrators and the victims of violence are disproportionately minorities.
It is also annoying because of the hypocrisy in their personal choices. These democrats (and I know quite a few) are the type to think going hiking as a minority (which I am) in North Georgia is rolling the dice with your safety, but at the same time, these people will take an Uber instead of taking MARTA, or buying a house in Grant Park instead of English Avenue.
It's not a right-wing boogeyman as much as we should consider that the right's solutions to crime generally diverge significantly from the communities most impacted. As I shared with Zaid back on Twitter, my dad, who's a pretty law and order guy living in Milwaukee, has a saying about it: "We need our community protected and served, not occupied." I don't think most people consider tanks rolling down their street to be a positive (my old man grew up in the 60s/70s so folks of his generation probably think that even more so.)
Yeah, there is a segment of Democrats and even self-described leftists who hold those "soft on crime" views and it is really damaging for democrats. I think crime and unsafe neighborhoods are abstract to a lot of them. I work in public transit and in the agency I work at, you have this darkly funny situation where the racially diverse working class drivers want better enforcement against fare evasion and problem riders but the mostly white transit planners at HQ think it is better to pay "ambassadors" to remind people to pay since getting the police involved may cause trauma and violence. And then they wonder why some of the drivers voted Trump despite being in a union.
Almost all normies just want to feel safe. They really do not care at all about the theories or details or in the weeds etc . Just safe, quiet, low crime cities.. I think folks of all colors want that
It's rather amazing that the Dems do not seize on that and actually work to improve that cause they are alienating millions and if a R without Orange man baggage comes along will really mop the floor with leftists
BTW --i am no Democrat tbh but cash we just not have our liberals back instead of the progressives?
All these explanations just feel so divorced from reality. Democrats have cut crime in big cities to historic lows, and people don't care. Your explanation is that crime rates are still high compared to certain other countries. But then wouldn't the obvious response be to copy the policies of those countries (specifically, no guns!) rather than everyone who says "Dems need to admit Trump has a point!".
The policies of countries with reasonable crime levels (e.g. Japan) is to not have violent or otherwise anti-social citizens; and when they do they are dealt with harshly, including severe legal penalties and real social shaming of their families.
It is not a "conspiracy theory" that crime statistics massively underestimate crime. Part of the reason is that the authorities underreport crime (though that is not the largest reason).
Nor is it true that there is a lack of evidence. This has been known for decades due to discrepancies between crime statistics (such as UCR/NIBRS) and victimization surveys (such as the NCVS).
Indeed, Michael Pulliam, 3rd District Commander of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, was put on paid leave back in May for falsifying crime reporting by downgrading crimes. The police union is defending him not by saying he didn't do it, but by alleging that this was the practice of the whole MPD, and he is being made a fall guy.
Downgrading of sex crimes and domestic violence crimes was one of the major drivers for crime reporting reforms in the 1990s, so this is nothing new.
yes, you’re right that 2020 saw a reversal of the downward trend, and that reversal lasted a couple years, but now crime is back to dropping. I track murder rates because they are hard to get wrong.
it might be true that shoplifting is still higher, but murder is at an historic low point
I track the per capita murder rate since it can’t be faked by bureaucrats, like the rest of the crime stats were proven to be. Any way you look at it the murder rate is at historic highs. Yes the 2024 rate is down from 2023 during the height of “the George Floyd effect” but it’s still much higher than any point 2010-2019 and one single data point of decline can not be considered “a trend” since it’s one anomalous data point and you need at least 2 (preferably 3) to consider it a trend. It doesn’t matter how you look at the math, the murder rate is historically high. Anyone saying otherwise is either stupid or a liar (probably a bit of both).
Thanks for sharing hard data! Looks like the graph that I posted did not come through. Here's the link to it. Maybe my graph is wrong! Can I ask where you got your numbers? Thanks.
From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, and/or the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The only data that means anything is per capita murders because it’s impossible for a corrupt politician to hide an actual body although they do try and turn murders into suicides/accidents a lot so even that data is not 100% accurate.
Yes, the chart I linked to is per-capita murders, and I agree that that’s the best stat for our purposes. Not sure why my graph doesn’t match your numbers. I looked at the two site you suggested and did not find per-capita numbers, so if you could help me out, I’d be obliged.
overall its not really complicated... Granted much of this is theater like all politics.
However, the core is like this----almost nobody likes crime and anything we can reasonably do to lower it esp in crime ridden areas is great. Other people/politcos blab but ther Orange man is doing something.
The real interesting question is why would people/officials try to block lowering crime and or improve the crime situation ?
Lets look into their motives, desires, and perverse incentives
Another 80/20 issue Dems are on the wrong side
The hard left so called "progressive base" is killing the Dems and the USA needs a 2 party system. The Dems are fast becoming a Euro-Corbyn leftist tragedy
Just yesterday here in Minneapolis a 40-ish guy from St. Paul carjacked a vehicle as he shot around wildly and then led police from the South side to downtown and to A north Minneapolis. You have to be really bad in Minneapolis to get police to pursue as mostly they won't by policy. He ended up killing two women when his crazy driving hit them and a 6-year old was in the ICU. 10 years ago carjacking wasn't even listed as a crime it was so rare but now it's a daily event. Crime is not down. It's way up.
The DC police suspended a high-up officer in the chain of command for cooking the crime stats. It's absolutely possible that crime is much higher in DC than the people in power let on. And your story about the guy getting stomped on the subway probably wasn't even reported as a crime. No cops show up, no report no crime. "Sh** happens."
Respectfully, deriding Trump’s actions as “performative” shows how far up our own keisters we really are. Leaders use performative acts to communicate to followers, opponents, and the majority too busy to engage otherwise. You want to know the high water mark of Biden’s last campaign? Marching a UAW picket line. And Trump knew it too, calling it a “cheap photo op” while hastily arranging his own.
Very well said, and a very important point. Both truths matter. Yes, Trump is engaging in transparently political theater. But he is not wrong about the shockingly high levels of crime that Americans are accustomed to.
As a DC native who grew up in the 1980s, I can attest to the impact that crime has on everything. When people don’t feel safe, it is hard for them to focus on anything else. It dominates every discussion. Progressives who deny that reality or scold people for being concerned about safety will continue to lose elections. A primary objective of any government is to keep people safe.
"Trump is engaging in transparently political theater" is not a truth. It's your own political theater.
I will tell you: I was attacked last night in DC. I don’t find what Trump is doing to he effective. But when I hear some progressive say “AKSHUALLY if you look at the data this way there’s not a problem” they’ve lost me, that is just a non starter. There’s no reason Americas capital city should not be like Tokyo, Singapore, or Copenhagen in terms of public safety.
Americans put up with too much public disorder and violence (including gun violence) and it doesn’t have to be that way.
I don't think Copenhagen or Tokyo has blacks. Sorry if that sounds racist but it's the truth. We had like 83 homicides where I live last year and 95% of shooter and victim was black. I bet you attacker was a black guy. Am I right? Maybe it's culture. Maybe it's the failed welfare system. Maybe it's something else. But that is the cause. It isn't the Copenhagen cops are much better. Or after school programs. It's black ghetto culture.
Quality of life offenses have skyrocketed since 2020 and before. It’s the stuff you see on your commute, in the subways, at CVS, etc. No one cares that there’s a couple dozen less murders in the worst part of any given city. They care that an insane man in the park is threatening their children with no repercussions. You’re overcomplicating it.
Democrats need to admit that crime in big cities continues to be a major problem and to quit allowing Trump to take control of this issue. Why not make fighting criminals a major priority of the Democratic Party and especially of Democratic mayors? Why are they always on their back foot on this issue? There is no political logic to being seen as soft on crime when most of the victims of crime are the very minorities that Democrats are supposed to champion. The single most important thing Democrats could do to save the lives of young black men would be to reinstitute the policing policy of “stop and frisk” in black neighborhoods to stop the blight of illegal guns. This would help stem the tide of murders of blacks that fill the nightly news in every major city in America. These kids would quickly get the message and quit carrying illegal guns. Young black men (15-34) are just 2% of the population and yet commit about half of the nation’s homicides. A rate an astounding 50 times higher than the average American. They are also the primary victims of these murders. We need to save their lives in spite of all the ACLU bullshit niceties.
'Crime is caused by poverty so it is never the criminal's fault' and 'victims matter' cannot coexist. Dems' own activists will force them to pick a side, and it won't (can't be) be the victims.
So the result of improvement in violent crime rates while the president sends the military into American streets is to chastise the left over anecdotal rhetoric instead of the right for overreaching? Lmfao, this is no different than Morning Joe telling Pritzker to facilitate the illegal occupation of his state because the admin feels like it.
This piece contributes nothing to the wider discussion beyond pearl clutching over improving crime rates. Yeah, we have a violence problem compared to the rest of the world, we also have a police violence problem compared to the rest of the world, and a manufacturing problem, and an education problem, and an infrastructure problem, most of which would shock other similarly developed nations. America is not unique in this regard. What is unique, is that we attribute to culture and language policing what could be resolved through divestment from militarized police and unified dissidence against furthering the police state. All this smoke for one dude who said something you disagreed with and nothing for deploying the American military in American streets as an arbitrary show of force.
Yes, and one thing leftists seem to miss is that crime prevention is anti-racist. African Americans suffer from crime at a rate multiple times higher than whites, so reductions in crime disproportionately benefit African Americans. By that measure, more cops on the beat (or any other anti-crime measure that works) is effectively anti-racist.
I know several women who won’t ride the Metro alone at night. This brings the pool of victims down and keeps the statistics artificially low.
In my 45 years as a Metro rider, I’ve seen tons of crime but I’ve never called it in. The DC metro is too deep and no one will arrive in time. So why bother? The station managers just look the other way. No one’s getting prosecuted. And some deranged “activist “ is a DC progressive hero for being arrested for misusing a student fare card (you can’t be over 21 to have it & “victim” is 28).
I hadn't thought of the "self-censoring" angle. Less vulnerable and exposed=less victims.
The “crime is declining” meme just makes no sense if you live here. A young person has no fear of the law and knows they can get away with almost anything.
Think of it this way: imagine if shoplifting was a reported and chargeable offense. And you lock up your inventory like CVS does. Well, sure, shoplifting will decline. But people will buy from Amazon because it’s less of a hassle. Prices will rise. The store that cannot lock up its inventory goes out of business. But statistically, crime is down in D.C. The criminally-inclined might find greener horizons in neighboring Maryland.
I do not want to be a fatalist, but this is something I simply do not see being resolved.
- My family members in rural PA, who have never been to Chicago and will never go to Chicago, want the feds to take over the "killing fields" of Chicago.
- If the people who live in Chicago feel the "cure" (federal intervention) is worse than the "disease" (the level of crime), they will reject it.
- My family members in rural PA, who have never been to Chicago and will never go to Chicago, will see this as evidence that liberal cities are crime-ridden and the people there protect criminals.
Is there any resolution other than "if you don't like it, don't go there"?
I can confirm a lot of Zaid's general observations since I lived most of my life in the places or regions he mentions (Seoul, Baltimore, D.C., Atlanta). The level of violent crime and general public disorder is like night and day whenever I go back to Korea. When you live in a city like Baltimore, you are often making small calculations about safety, especially at night and that stress adds up. Compared to Korea, you wouldn't think twice about the safety of even your grandmother riding public transit at night. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things wrong with Korean culture, but public safety is not one of them.
As someone on the far left, it is annoying to see that it has become common among wealthier democrats to treat public safety like a right-wing boogey man even though both the perpetrators and the victims of violence are disproportionately minorities.
It is also annoying because of the hypocrisy in their personal choices. These democrats (and I know quite a few) are the type to think going hiking as a minority (which I am) in North Georgia is rolling the dice with your safety, but at the same time, these people will take an Uber instead of taking MARTA, or buying a house in Grant Park instead of English Avenue.
It's not a right-wing boogeyman as much as we should consider that the right's solutions to crime generally diverge significantly from the communities most impacted. As I shared with Zaid back on Twitter, my dad, who's a pretty law and order guy living in Milwaukee, has a saying about it: "We need our community protected and served, not occupied." I don't think most people consider tanks rolling down their street to be a positive (my old man grew up in the 60s/70s so folks of his generation probably think that even more so.)
No offense to you, but I think many of the far lefts preferences fuel the anti social behaviors-like crime,- just like you wrote.
if you accept it, coddle it, excuse it, etc then it grows and becomes acceptable
How can the "left" ( and it is growing very far to the left) turn this attitude around ?
Yeah, there is a segment of Democrats and even self-described leftists who hold those "soft on crime" views and it is really damaging for democrats. I think crime and unsafe neighborhoods are abstract to a lot of them. I work in public transit and in the agency I work at, you have this darkly funny situation where the racially diverse working class drivers want better enforcement against fare evasion and problem riders but the mostly white transit planners at HQ think it is better to pay "ambassadors" to remind people to pay since getting the police involved may cause trauma and violence. And then they wonder why some of the drivers voted Trump despite being in a union.
It is up to the rest of the leftists to argue that being "soft" on crime or low expectations of public order is not a leftist position at all. Freddie DeBoer has written about it fairly well. https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/the-left-has-never-stood-for-literally
Yep
Almost all normies just want to feel safe. They really do not care at all about the theories or details or in the weeds etc . Just safe, quiet, low crime cities.. I think folks of all colors want that
It's rather amazing that the Dems do not seize on that and actually work to improve that cause they are alienating millions and if a R without Orange man baggage comes along will really mop the floor with leftists
BTW --i am no Democrat tbh but cash we just not have our liberals back instead of the progressives?
All these explanations just feel so divorced from reality. Democrats have cut crime in big cities to historic lows, and people don't care. Your explanation is that crime rates are still high compared to certain other countries. But then wouldn't the obvious response be to copy the policies of those countries (specifically, no guns!) rather than everyone who says "Dems need to admit Trump has a point!".
The policies of countries with reasonable crime levels (e.g. Japan) is to not have violent or otherwise anti-social citizens; and when they do they are dealt with harshly, including severe legal penalties and real social shaming of their families.
It is not a "conspiracy theory" that crime statistics massively underestimate crime. Part of the reason is that the authorities underreport crime (though that is not the largest reason).
Nor is it true that there is a lack of evidence. This has been known for decades due to discrepancies between crime statistics (such as UCR/NIBRS) and victimization surveys (such as the NCVS).
Indeed, Michael Pulliam, 3rd District Commander of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, was put on paid leave back in May for falsifying crime reporting by downgrading crimes. The police union is defending him not by saying he didn't do it, but by alleging that this was the practice of the whole MPD, and he is being made a fall guy.
Downgrading of sex crimes and domestic violence crimes was one of the major drivers for crime reporting reforms in the 1990s, so this is nothing new.
I have an article in the works on this.
Homicides in DC for 2020-2024 are actually up dramatically from the 2010-2019 level. Not sure where this decline in crime narrative is coming from.
yes, you’re right that 2020 saw a reversal of the downward trend, and that reversal lasted a couple years, but now crime is back to dropping. I track murder rates because they are hard to get wrong.
it might be true that shoplifting is still higher, but murder is at an historic low point
I track the per capita murder rate since it can’t be faked by bureaucrats, like the rest of the crime stats were proven to be. Any way you look at it the murder rate is at historic highs. Yes the 2024 rate is down from 2023 during the height of “the George Floyd effect” but it’s still much higher than any point 2010-2019 and one single data point of decline can not be considered “a trend” since it’s one anomalous data point and you need at least 2 (preferably 3) to consider it a trend. It doesn’t matter how you look at the math, the murder rate is historically high. Anyone saying otherwise is either stupid or a liar (probably a bit of both).
2010: 21.9
2011: 17.5
2012: 13.9
2013: 15.9
2014: 15.9
2015: 24.1
2016: 20.3
2017: 16.7
2018: 22.8
2019: 23.6
2020: 29.0
2021: 34.0
2022: 30.0
2023: 39.4
2024: 27.3
Thanks for sharing hard data! Looks like the graph that I posted did not come through. Here's the link to it. Maybe my graph is wrong! Can I ask where you got your numbers? Thanks.
https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/dataviz/murder-rate-in-the-united-states-per-100000-1950-2024
From the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, and/or the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The only data that means anything is per capita murders because it’s impossible for a corrupt politician to hide an actual body although they do try and turn murders into suicides/accidents a lot so even that data is not 100% accurate.
Yes, the chart I linked to is per-capita murders, and I agree that that’s the best stat for our purposes. Not sure why my graph doesn’t match your numbers. I looked at the two site you suggested and did not find per-capita numbers, so if you could help me out, I’d be obliged.
Are you tracking murder rate for the entire country or just Washington DC?
overall its not really complicated... Granted much of this is theater like all politics.
However, the core is like this----almost nobody likes crime and anything we can reasonably do to lower it esp in crime ridden areas is great. Other people/politcos blab but ther Orange man is doing something.
The real interesting question is why would people/officials try to block lowering crime and or improve the crime situation ?
Lets look into their motives, desires, and perverse incentives
Another 80/20 issue Dems are on the wrong side
The hard left so called "progressive base" is killing the Dems and the USA needs a 2 party system. The Dems are fast becoming a Euro-Corbyn leftist tragedy
Just yesterday here in Minneapolis a 40-ish guy from St. Paul carjacked a vehicle as he shot around wildly and then led police from the South side to downtown and to A north Minneapolis. You have to be really bad in Minneapolis to get police to pursue as mostly they won't by policy. He ended up killing two women when his crazy driving hit them and a 6-year old was in the ICU. 10 years ago carjacking wasn't even listed as a crime it was so rare but now it's a daily event. Crime is not down. It's way up.
The DC police suspended a high-up officer in the chain of command for cooking the crime stats. It's absolutely possible that crime is much higher in DC than the people in power let on. And your story about the guy getting stomped on the subway probably wasn't even reported as a crime. No cops show up, no report no crime. "Sh** happens."
Respectfully, deriding Trump’s actions as “performative” shows how far up our own keisters we really are. Leaders use performative acts to communicate to followers, opponents, and the majority too busy to engage otherwise. You want to know the high water mark of Biden’s last campaign? Marching a UAW picket line. And Trump knew it too, calling it a “cheap photo op” while hastily arranging his own.