Where Republicans Got It Wrong on Crime

Crime is a major issue in the midterms. In some states and cities, it’s the major issue, and properly so. Two professors, John Paul Wright of the University of Cincinnati and Matt DeLisi of Iowa State, recently wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal that nails the issue on the head as succinctly as I’ve ever seen:

“To expect bad men not to do wrong is madness,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, “for he who expects this, desires an impossibility.” Unfortunately, Aurelius’ cautionary advice has been ignored by political progressives and their cronies in academia, who seek to reform the criminal-justice system by reducing the accountability and oversight of criminals (“Rising Crime Rates Are a Policy Choice” by William Barr, op-ed, Oct. 27).

The left paints police as murderers, the justice system as an instrument of state oppression, and incarceration as a massive vice that is overused and damaging to the social fabric. The imposition of discomfort on criminals, by arrest, bail, jail, fines or prison, we are now told, is regressive, racist and, remarkably, a cause of crime. Even the language used to describe lawbreakers has been sterilized: Criminals are now “justice-involved individuals,” rioters are “mostly peaceful” and released convicts are “returning citizens.” In the upside-down world of progressive fantasy, bad men do no wrong, and good men do no right.

Mr. Barr is correct that rising crime rates have occurred primarily because of progressive policies. Vitriolic political rhetoric and the betrayal of law enforcement by the left has decimated the morale and legitimacy of police. Many agencies can’t fill their ranks. Ambush attacks on police are at an all-time high. After progressives emptied jails, rolled back or ended bail and defanged the police, murder and gun assaults had their highest one-year increase ever. These were policy decisions that favored criminals, not victims, and that jeopardized public safety.

Yet it is important to recognize that conservatives, too, played a role. Wooed by promises of saving money and influenced by an equally naive libertarian ideology, conservatives failed to stand for public safety and, in some instances, sided with progressives. Mr. Barr is right that crime is a political choice. Unfortunately, it is a choice that has been made by both sides.

As Profs. Wright and DeLisi understand, America is not overincarcerated. It’s underincarcerated and, thanks to “progressive” policies and prosecutors, it’s getting worse. Just as crime is up over the last eight years — murder in particular — the prison population has gone down. See, e.g., this unfortunately correct report a year ago from the Pew Research Center, “America’s Incarceration Rate Falls to the Lowest Level Since 1995.” And lest the Left attempt to blame the crime increase on COVID and the dislocations it caused — not so fast. After reaching its low point in 2014, crime has been going up consistently, see this chart. In other words, it started its ascent years before COVID even existed. Specifically, it started up during the last two years of the Obama administration (and, to be fair, continued during the Trump years, just at it continues now).

The statistics are bad, but the anecdotal evidence is worse. It seems that at least once a week, you see tape of an unsuspecting man getting pushed onto the tracks, an elderly lady getting cold-cocked for no reason, an SUV plowing into pedestrians out of malice, a vicious carjacking, the 7-11 clerk getting a revolver stuck in her face, the Wawa or Walgreens or CVS being ransacked with little to no resistance, and on and on.

Q: What do these episodes have in common? A: Almost always, the people responsible had long criminal records; most of them had been arrested and/or jailed, but had been released. Sometimes the release was due to progressives’ new and ever-so-trendy no-cash bail. At least as often it’s because the prior episodes of violence were met with absurdly lenient sentences, putting the offenders back on the street to do it again. And not infrequently, it was because arguably adequate sentences were cut short by mindless (and always unaccountable) parole or “supervised” release decisions; or “compassionate release;” or budgetary decisions to save money or simply reduce the prison population.

The excuses vary, but the results are the same: More crime and more crime victims — disproportionately (ready now?) the vulnerable and minorities. With a stratospheric recidivism rate, what were we expecting?

And who’s responsible for these crime-indulgent policies? For by far the most part, Leftists — the same crowd that’s been of the side of criminals for decades. But as Profs. Wright and DeLisi note, Republicans have to take some of the blame. At the federal level, the most prominent culprit was the First Step Act of 2018, a criminal-friendly piece of legislation that had been stalled in Congress for years but that got decisive support from none other than President Donald J. Trump. This was after Trump had been lobbied by such criminal law experts as Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

Perhaps President Trump saw a chance to get some favorable press for ten seconds. Perhaps he was just hoodwinked by celebrities. I don’t know; for by far the most part, Trump was good on criminal justice issues, including the death penalty, and he appointed (although he later disrespected) two excellent Attorneys General, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. But his decisive support for the First Step Act (which Paul correctly nailed early on as the “Jail Break Act”) was a major policy mistake. In addition, it now provides grist for the Democrats to claim, correctly for once, that if some “progressive” policies turned out to be, ummmmmm, ill-advised, they’re not the only ones to blame.