Get Used to Increased Crime

For months local news outlets have been reporting on a spike in shootings and homicides in large American cities, often with experts attributing it to the pandemic and the unrest following the death of George Floyd.  But with most businesses closed and most people staying home shouldn’t there be less violent crime?  George Floyd’s death was in May, and while there are still sporadic protests in places like Portland and Seattle, this does not explain the reported 728 people shot in Philadelphia in the month of November, the highest number of Los Angeles murders in a decade, the 26% homicide increase in Nashville, or the 38% increase in Sacramento.

NBC News reports that in the leafy town of Waltham, MA, twelve miles outside of Boston, there have been at least ten unprovoked violent assaults on men in November.  Police report that in each case the assailant was lying in wait, then ran up to each victim from behind hitting them on the head multiple times with a blunt instrument.   In the toney Oakland Hills, a 23-year-old woman was shot while sitting in her car on December 2nd leaving her in critical condition.  Elsewhere in Oakland, two gang members were arrested for shooting at a Highway Patrol vehicle, the next day two people were shot with one dead, and another shooting put a man in critical condition.   In Frankford, PA a 12-year-old boy was killed after being shot in the face while answering his front door.  On Black Friday, two groups of teens at a Sacramento, CA mall got into a gunfight leaving two dead.  Police report that a significant number of recent attacks appear to be random and many are happening in broad daylight.

While unemployment and depression due to the pandemic and anger about claimed racial bias by police may be contributing to what’s going on,  the primary cause of today’s lawlessness and violence is the widespread breakdown in law enforcement.  Most of this breakdown has been intentionally created.  During all eight years of the Obama administration, U.S. Attorneys were ordered to back off on the prosecution and sentencing of drug traffickers, while granting early release from federal prisons to thousands of drug dealers.  At the same time, the President, his Attorney General, liberal members of Congress, Governors, Mayors, Black Lives Matter and other activist groups and most of academia and the national medial endlessly proclaimed that America was country founded on racial bias and that every institution, and particularly the criminal justice system blatantly discriminates against minorities.  In the name of racial justice, states including California, Oregon, Colorado, Georgia, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana and even to some extent Texas and Nevada, have passed laws and implemented policies eliminating pro-active policing, reducing sentences, legalizing drugs, protecting illegal alien criminals from federal arrest, and giving  early release to thousands of repeat offenders.   This is far more dangerous than Covid-19.

Under a Biden Presidency, the new Attorney General will likely resume the policies of the Obama years.  In many states, even those where conservatives have regained the legislatures, undoing pro-criminal policies may take a decade.  In states like California, New York,  Washington and Illinois, enough pro-law enforcement change to make any difference will likely take a generation.