Being soft on crime not only hurts cities, but also the careers of those who push those policies.
Will the recent defeat of Lori Lightfoot in Chicago finally convince big-city politicians to abandon radical, “soft on crime” policies? That’s the question our National co-director, Gabriel Nadales, asks in a recent article published in Real Clear Politics.
Since the rise of anti-police politicians in big cities like Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Portland in 2020, there has been a marked rise in crime in these areas. Walmart has shut down all of its stores in Portland, Ore. after a sharp rise in theft and violent crime over the last few years. New York has seen a rise in crime since the “defund the police” movement took place, an unfortunate shift from falling crime rates in the decade leading up to the movement.
Washington D.C. was recently spared from these consequences when Congress blocked a local measure that would have reduced sentences for crimes like carjackings. Despite a rise in crime, many big-city politicians seemed to have ignored the data and continued with anarchist policies.
However, change may be on the horizon. Many saw the ousting of former San Francisco Attorney General Chesa Boudin as a sign that the people, including many left-leaning voters, were fed up with ‘pie-in-the-sky’ policies that drove up crime. And fear has gripped the city after the recent stabbing death of a high-profile tech executive. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a shift in tactics coming into the most recent mayoral election campaigns by many of the big city democratic candidates.
Lori Lightfoot, who ignored the lessons she should have learned from Boudin, learned the hard way when she became the first Chicago mayor in forty years to lose a re-election campaign. Anti-police policies hurt cities and are antithetical to what the majority of people want. According to Our America’s recent survey, 79% of people want tougher sentences for violent crime and 75% support fully funding the police.
Now, we’re also seeing another casualty of anti-police policymaking – the careers of those who advocate for those policies. Though this shouldn’t come as a big surprise, politicians that ignore the overwhelming will of the people who vote for them don’t tend to last long in politics.
We’re hoping that this is a wake-up call to those who would rather listen to a handful of radical activists than the majority of their constituents. If big city politicians want to succeed, they need to start taking crime seriously.
