Y’all fr be acting like everything is super dangerous now. Please crime has always been a thing but 99% of the time it’s hypersensationalized and blown way out of proportion. It’s absolutely an issue but the rhetoric from everyone is like we’re in some war zone lmao.
Rising crime rates (as with rising inflation) is not a figment of the imagination. Homicides, for instance, are at their highest since the mid-1990s:
Data for 2020 and 2021 are estimates. Sources: Jeff Asher; F.B.I.
And people are noticing. So much so that progressive prosecutors elected in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests are coming up against a brick wall in their bid to roll back anti-crime policies first put in place in the 1990s:
They Wanted to Roll Back Tough-on-Crime Policies. Then Violent Crime Surged.
With violent crime rates rising and elections looming, progressive prosecutors are facing resistance to their plans to roll back stricter crime policies of the 1990s.
Four years ago, progressive prosecutors were in the sweet spot of Democratic politics. Aligned with the growing Black Lives Matter movement but pragmatic enough to draw establishment support, they racked up wins in cities across the country.
Today, a political backlash is brewing. With violent crime rates rising in some cities and elections looming, their attempts to roll back the tough-on-crime policies of the 1990s are increasingly under attack — from familiar critics on the right, but also from onetime allies within the Democratic Party.
In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin is facing a recall vote in June, stoked by criticism from the city’s Democratic mayor. In Los Angeles, the county district attorney, George Gascón, is trying to fend off a recall effort as some elected officials complain about new guidelines eliminating the death penalty and the prosecution of juveniles as adults. Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, quickly ran afoul of the new Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, and his new police commissioner over policies that critics branded too lenient.
The combative resistance is a harsh turn for a group of leaders whom progressives hailed as an electoral success story. Rising homicide and violent crime rates have even Democrats in liberal cities calling for more law enforcement, not less — forcing prosecutors to defend their policies against their own allies. And traditional boosters on the left aren’t rushing to their aid, with some saying they’ve soured on the officials they once backed.
Some of this is due to the fact that police officers have effectively been engaging in soft strikes since 2020 if not since 2014.
The solution to that is to do to the Fraternal Order of Police what Scott Walker did to AFSCME/AFT/NEA in Wisconsin—disempower LEOs, make them answer to non-LEO management, and make it considerably easier to fire police officers (none of this "paid leave for a year while your shooting is 'investigated'" nonsense).
