Jeff Charles
Sociopolitical correspondent at LibertyNation.com. A self-confessed news and political junkie, Jeff’s writing has been featured in NewsweekOpinion and Red State. He hosts A Fresh Perspective podcast and has appeared as a guest on Fox News, Fox Soul and The Hill’s Rising. When he is not engaging in the world of polemics, Jeff enjoys reading, binging television shows and feeding his unhealthy Twitter addiction.
As if the nation needed even more evidence showing how inept the left is at addressing crime, another study recently has revealed how dangerous it is to live in some cities run by Democratic mayors. Crime was a pressing issue in last year’s midterm elections but not quite problematic enough to bring about the highly anticipated red wave. Nevertheless, Republicans still took back the House – by a much smaller margin than expected – and much of their success can be attributed to concerns over crime in various communities. One might assume that the Democrats would rethink their current soft-on-crime policies, but it does not seem they have learned their lesson.
Democratic Mayors Preside Over Dangerous Crime
Numbeo, a global quality-of-life database, published a study ranking the 50 most dangerous cities across the globe. Unfortunately, 11 US cities made the cut, and they all had one thing in common: Each is run by a Democratic mayor.
The US cities on the list are Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis, Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, Houston, Oakland and New Orleans.
The study offered a crime and a safety index. A high safety index means the city is considered very safe; a high crime index deems it dangerous. Just the News explained:
If a city’s crime levels are lower than 20, for instance, this is considered excellent. Crime levels between 20 and 40 are considered good; crime levels between 40 and 60 are moderate; crime levels between 60 and 80 are considered high. Finally, crime levels higher than 80 are considered dangerously high. The safety index, meanwhile, is ranked in the completely opposite way, with scores higher than 80 indicating that a city is very safe, and scores under 20 indicating that a city is borderline uninhabitable.
Several factors have contributed to the rise in crime over the past three years. The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly complicated matters, but one of the primary causes is the soft-on-crime policies Democrats have favoured, especially after the nationwide unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd.
Although the “defund the police” movement received tremendous backlash from the populace, far-leftist district attorneys in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York insisted on employing weak policies to curtail lawbreakers. Under the guise of promoting bail reform, they have let numerous individuals suspected of violent crimes back onto the street.
In a piece for The Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley wrote:
In the past few years, we’ve conducted a natural experiment in defunding police departments, releasing prisoners before they complete their sentences, stripping judges of discretion in holding suspects until trial and effectively decriminalizing so-called minor offenses such as retail theft.
The upshot has been lower morale among law enforcement, higher crime rates and more crime victims, particularly among the low-income minorities on whom violent criminals tend to prey. The Democratic Party’s embrace of Black Lives Matter activism has turned out to be not only bad policy but also bad politics.
Will Anything Change?
So far, it does not seem Democrats at the local level have seen the error in their ways. Indeed, the fact that they did not perform as badly as expected in the midterms seems to have emboldened them to double down on policies that do more to protect criminals than law-abiding civilians. Unfortunately, this might mean that those living in high-crime areas will not see a reprieve anytime soon.
But it is also worth noting that, while Democrats were not punished heavily last November, if crime continues to be a problem over the next two years, it could cost them big at all levels of government. It seems reasonable to suggest that, at this point, there is only so much more that Americans will take.
