Early estimates find that in 2020, homicides in the United States increased somewhere between 25 percent and nearly 40 percent, the largest spike since 1960, when formal crime statistics began to be collected. And early estimates indicate that the increase has carried over to 2021, report New York Times.
Violent crime is a crisis on two levels. The first,
and most direct, is the toll it takes on people and communities. The lost
lives, the grieving families, the traumatized children, the families and
businesses that flee, leaving inequality and joblessness for those who remain.
It’s also a political crisis: Violent crime can lead
to more punitive, authoritarian and often racist policies, with consequences
that shape communities decades later. In the 1970s and ’80s, the politics of
crime drove the rise of mass incarceration and warrior policing, the political
careers of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the abandonment of inner cities. If
these numbers keep rising, they could end any chance we have of building a new
approach to safety, and possibly carry Donald Trump — or someone like him —
back to the presidency in 2024.
There’s still time. Just this week, Philadelphia’s
progressive district attorney, Larry Krasner, handily fended off a primary
challenge. But the politics are changing, and fast: Democratic primary voters
in New York City say crime and violence is the second most important problem facing the city,
behind the coronavirus but ahead of affordable housing and racial injustice.
And just a few weeks ago, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, who was facing
political challengers attacking her for being soft on crime, announced she would not seek re-election in the fall.
So do liberals have an answer to violent crime? And
if so, what is it?
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