The politicization of violent crime in the USA ignores the numbers | USA

Violent crime in the United States has declined this year, but with the U.S. presidential election looming, it may be more sensible to ignore that fact. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. voters believe that reducing crime should be one of the government's top priorities, and the issue is often cited as one of their biggest concerns. So the latest trends — based on data from the FBI and the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association — should be very welcome news. But the fact that it's difficult to identify clear causes for the decline in violent crime means that, to some extent, perceptions of crime are a more politically important yardstick than the crime rate itself. In fact, the political discourse and debate surrounding violent crime ignores the numbers that can be cleverly used to support almost any thesis.

A few days ago, the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) released its statistics on violent crimes – including murder, rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault – for the first six months of the year. Overall, the data reflects a 6% year-over-year decline, with an overall decline seen in nearly all 69 cities studied. While Columbus, Ohio, saw the largest decline at 41%, Washington and Miami, traditional crime hotspots, each saw a 29% decline. Homicides fell by an average of 17%, with Boston and Philadelphia leading the pack with 78% and 42% fewer murders, respectively.

For David Kennedy, a professor of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and director of the National Network for Safe Communities, the numbers suggest a positive trend; however, he points out that crime is often a local phenomenon, meaning national data provides little insight into what might be behind it. “In a country like the United States, the national story of violent crime is actually one of many local stories of violent crime. Cities don't always progress together: some get better while others get worse, and vice versa. But this improvement in many cities is enough to show a clear national improvement. The important thing is that it's happening, it's real, and it's of course very, very good news.”

To put the decline in context, it's important to remember that national crime rates skyrocketed during the pandemic. The current decline, Kennedy says, is a return to the pre-Covid status quo. “There are countless people who say this was due to the disruption of essential public services during the pandemic, or because much of the time coincided with the anti-police protests following the killing of George Floyd, which resulted in services and care having to be moved out of the communities where the violence was concentrated. There was also a sharp increase in the purchase of firearms, and the country is in the midst of the latest phase of a national opioid epidemic. I could go on, there are many of these factors.” But these are all theories, and there is not enough information to confirm or refute any of them.

This means that politically – especially during a presidential election, when this issue is at stake – the perception of violent crime is more telling than the rates themselves. In other words, what voters think about reality is more important than reality. And while violent crime rates have been rising in parallel with perceptions of insecurity for several years – between the Covid lockdown and today – these two data points are now moving in opposite directions. This paradox has been the norm since the “great crime decline” began in the early 1990s.

Again, there is not enough data to provide explanations for this counterintuitive phenomenon. Some blame the media, which – in an effort to boost ratings with sensationalist content – focuses disproportionately on violent crime and crime in general, painting a false picture of reality. Or political narratives, which – knowing how to use fear effectively to mobilize voters – paint an apocalyptic picture of the world. It doesn't matter if the data says otherwise, there will always be a city or neighborhood to point to, or an isolated event that overshadows reality. And these arguments almost always cannot be effectively refuted due to a lack of information beyond the hard data, which for some reason can also be contested.

It is no coincidence, then, that demonizing crime is a central part of the modern populist's playbook. In the United States, Donald Trump has been pursuing this strategy since he entered politics nearly a decade ago. His personal trademark is to link supposedly rampant and rising crime to “uncontrolled” immigration, supporting this argument with only a handful of isolated, migrant-related incidents. But Kennedy points out that this is precisely one of the few arguments that can be reliably refuted.

“People just say 'this is what's happening and this is what it means,' and there's no basis for a thorough discussion and testing of the truth of those positions. But sometimes it's easier to say what's not happening. And in fact, there's very strong and consistent research that says that recent immigrant populations are significantly safer than established U.S. communities. Rates of violence and other types of crime are higher in native communities than in places where there has been recent legal and illegal immigration. We know this for a fact, the data is clear on this,” Kennedy explains, adding that this point has had little political impact: “People don't respect it, don't know about it, don't pay attention to it.”

This situation has forced the Democratic Party to show that it too can take a tough stance against crime. Its presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, was previously Attorney General of California and wrote a book entitled Smart in dealing with crime. Nevertheless, Republicans are trying to portray them as lenient towards crime. This debate is also devoid of facts.

But Kennedy believes Harris should take credit for her past record. While it's very difficult to pinpoint an overarching cause for the current crime decline, the implementation of so-called evidence-based violence prevention – scientifically vetted community programs to combat the most serious types of crime – shows that there is indeed an alternative to harshness. Kennedy explains that the Biden-Harris administration was the first to recognize this new approach, to provide it with national funding and to roll out the programs nationwide. “Vice President Harris has been one of the strongest advocates of these new approaches and what she and the administration call 'smart policing.' So I think there's every reason to believe that a Harris administration will continue to build on these proven approaches.”

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