Crime has always been and will remain a hot-button political issue. Misinformation, misrepresentations, and outright lies have become the cornerstone of American politics at every level—local, state, and federal. That is especially the case when it comes to law-and-order politics. Facts are overwhelmed by misrepresentations; rational decision-making succumbs to misinformation, and social hysteria is produced by outright lies.
Here is an example of how crime is exploited by politicians locked in heated political campaigns.
Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) recently co-sponsored a law-and-order bill with Texas Rep. Troy Nehis (R-Tex) called the “Justice for Jocelyn Act.” The Act is in response to the brutal rape and murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston on June 17, 2024, by two undocumented Venezuelan immigrants.
The crime has drawn the ire of the mayor, district attorney, and several prominent local business and community leaders. The crime has also drawn the attention of Republican presidential aspirant Donald J. Trump, who is Sen. Cruz’s political boss and probably gave the senatorial sycophant orders to introduce the Jocelyn Act to underscore his “illegal immigration” policies.
Whatever the reason, Cruz saw an opportunity to exploit this horrible crime to shore up his law-and-order bona fides as he fights to hold on to his senate seat. Yet the “flee to Cancun” senator has not spoken one word about the brutal murder of Sonya Massey on July 6, 2024, in Springfield, Illinois, by a rogue police officer with a violent, disruptive law enforcement and military past. The murderous cop shot Massey in the face as she apologized to him during a mental health crisis. The sycophantic senator did not introduce a “Justice for Sonya Act.”
The two Venezuelan immigrants and the rogue police officer have been charged with murder. Both cases will play a role in the law-and-order debate in many state and federal elections between now and the general election on November 5, 2024. Both cases will be exploited for different political reasons.
But what are the actual facts about crime in America?
Violent crime and most other crimes reached their peak in the mid-1990s. Despite more media attention being given to the crime subject and the political exploitation of the issue, crime has been on a continuous downward trend in America for the past two decades. There have been spikes in one crime category or another during this downward trend, but these spikes have proven to be aberrations in the decrease in overall national crime.
A July 2024 report by the Council on Criminal Justice shows that this downward trend has continued through the first half of 2024. The report focuses on 12 violent, property, and drug offenses in 39 major U.S. cities that have reported their crime data regularly for the past six years. Eleven of these offense categories were lower during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2023. The report drew these specific conclusions:
- Overall, most violent crimes are at or below levels seen in 2019, the year before the onset of the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There are 2% fewer homicides during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019 and 15% fewer robberies. Aggravated assaults and domestic violence incidents also are below levels seen five years ago. Gun assaults were 1% higher during the first half of 2024 than during the first half of 2019, and carjacking, a crime that is relatively uncommon but began to spike shortly after the onset of the pandemic, was 68% higher.
- Looking at violent offenses, the number of homicides in the 29 study cities providing data for that crime was 13% lower–319 fewer homicides–during the first half of 2024 than in the first half of 2023. There were 7% fewer reported aggravated assaults and 18% fewer gun assaults in the first half of 2024 than during the same period in 2023. Reported carjacking incidents fell by 26% while robberies and domestic violence incidents declined by 6% and 2%, respectively.
- Motor vehicle theft, a crime that has been rising since the summer of 2020, continued its upward trajectory through 2023. That trend reversed in the first half of 2024, however, as there were 18% fewer motor vehicle thefts compared to the first half of 2023.
- Reports of residential burglaries (-14%), nonresidential burglaries (-10%), larcenies (-6%), and drug offenses (-2%) all decreased in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023. However, rates of reported shoplifting, a crime that has received extensive attention from the media and policymakers, increased by 24% over the same period.
- Property crime trends have been mixed over the last five years. There were fewer residential burglaries and larcenies but more nonresidential burglaries in the first half of 2024 than during the same period five years earlier. Motor vehicle thefts more than doubled during the timeframe, while shoplifting is 10% higher. Drug offenses remain below 2019 levels.
These conclusions show that the United States is not in the middle of a “crime crisis” as many law-and-order politicians would have us believe. Crime should not be a political issue. It is a social issue that must be addressed through varied means, including social programs that address the root of crime and criminal laws whose penalties fit the nature and degree of the crime.
We do not endorse naming criminal laws after specific victims (nor after the lawmakers who proposed them). One murder victim is no more important than any other. More often than not, these tragic cases are used by politicians as crude tools to enrage their base and encourage votes, while very little is actually done to address the root cause of crime or real criminal justice reform that would improve the system.