The midterm elections are over, but crime isn’t going away
Zachary Faria
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The midterm elections may be over (except in California), but the issue of crime isn’t going to go away magically when the campaign commercials stop.
Crime remains a massive problem and a political issue in several cities run by Democrats, including New York City. The topic of crime nearly helped Republican Lee Zeldin pull off an upset over Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY). Now, New Yorkers are stuck with a 25-year high in subway killings and with Hochul, who has said the idea that crime was rising was a conspiracy theory.
In Los Angeles, homicide is up 14.6% this year, compared to 2020. Robbery is up 16%, aggravated assault is up 10%, grand theft auto is up 23%, gunshots fired are up 18%, and shooting victims are up 12%. Meanwhile, arrests are down 10%. The attempt to recall soft-on-crime District Attorney George Gascon failed after too many signatures were disqualified (perhaps in error), and the city just elected soft-on-crime Democrat Karen Bass to serve as mayor.
TWO STABBED, SUSPECT SHOT AT LOS ANGELES TARGET
Unlike Los Angeles, Philadelphia may be moving toward fixing its crime problem — or, at least, being dragged to a solution. Pennsylvania Republicans have voted to impeach the city’s soft-on-crime district attorney, Larry Krasner. With shootings, armed robberies, property crimes, commercial burglaries, and overall violent crime up compared to last year, and the city on pace to break its homicide record (which it set last year under Krasner), Krasner declared that Philadelphia doesn’t have a crime problem, but Missouri does.
Portland, Oregon, had 5,000 reports of property crime in 2021, for which the city made just 36 arrests. Washington is planning to give lighter sentences to carjackers and felons in illegal possession of a firearm at a time when carjackings and homicides are out of control. And larcenies have increased every single month in Baltimore this year, which is a problem, given that the city solves them at a far lower rate (2.7%) than the national average (15%).
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Crime may not be on the ballot for another two years, but the reality of crime isn’t going to slow down to wait for another election cycle. Democrat-run cities are lifting penalties on career and violent criminals, as if “mass incarceration” were a bigger problem than public safety. This only encourages criminals to become more active and more brazen, which is exactly what they have been doing. Nothing is going to change, except for the relative lack of campaign commercials.