formerly classified as aggravated assaults are now being considered a simple assault, which are then record- ed as a misdemeanor and a nonvio- lent crime. “It varies from city to city, but what
we have seen is that in many major cit- ies, the more serious crimes are being downgraded to lower-level offenses,” said Smith. A driving factor that can’t be
ignored is the natural political incen- tive at play for big city elected officials to perpetuate the public perception that crime is on the decline, according to Smith. “In many of these cases, it is clear
they are warping data for their own political purposes,” he said. The issue of crime and safety has
become a political liability for officials across several major American cities, all of which are almost exclusively controlled by Democrats. A March 2024 Gallup poll found
ADAMS
Mayors in Denial N
ew York’s Transit Bureau released figures showing that
violent subway crimes went up by 13% this year. Mayor Eric Adams’ ofice quickly pushed back, disputing the numbers released by the agency he controls. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
that nearly 80% of Americans say they personally worry about crime and violence “a great deal or fair amount,” placing it on par with infla- tion as one of the top issues of concern for citizens. “Americans’ support for greater law enforcement and
told ABC News in a May 14 interview: “Since I’ve been in ofice, homicides and shootings continue to go down. Vehicular carjackings has gone down.” After being confronted by data showing robberies are up compared to the last three years, Johnson responded, “Look, there’s still a lot of work to be done. Don’t misunderstand me.”
In many cases, elected officials
have escaped greater scrutiny by using poor data points to create a politically expedient false impression of reality while simultaneously making a state- ment that can be defended as empiri- cally true.
According to the Coalition for Law,
Order, and Safety’s report, officials can be accurate in claiming that crime has slightly decreased by comparing it to the historic spike that occurred in the spring of 2020 — a time when much of the country was besieged by unprec- edented riots and social unrest. The researchers wrote: “To say
crime is down is like descending from a tall peak and standing on a high bluff, saying you are closer to the ground — a true but misleading state- ment.
“The truth is that violent crime is substantially elevated in major cit- ies (and nationally) compared to pre- 2020 levels.” The coalition report identified de-
policing, de-carceration, de-prosecu- tion, and politicization of the crimi- nal justice system as the four poten- tial causes most responsible for the
increase in crime in most major cities across the nation. Further, the once reliable FBI statistics are also now
stiffer criminal penalties has increased as polls show that the public believes crime has risen, and they feel less safe,” the Gallup report concluded. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police chief
who was elected largely on a law-and-order platform, con- tinues to make the claim that “overall crime is down.”
under scrutiny. Several major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles,
and New York, stopped submitting crime data to the FBI last year as has been done in previous years. The FBI’s new updated system substituted real data
with an estimation model that instead infers missing crime data, rendering statistics into an “informed guess” — which critics claim make it susceptible to errors. However, despite the distortions, elected officials can’t
keep hidden what the voting public experiences in their day-to-day lives, according to Smith, who also served as a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Florida. “The left began implementing these policies so that
very few people can be held accountable for real crimes, and I think they are finally beginning to understand that it is their own voters in low-income areas who are being most adversely affected and, being on the ground, can see what is actually happening,” said Smith. “Public safety is one of the few issues that doesn’t
belong to either the political left or the political right, but affects everyone.”
AUGUST 2024 | NEWSMAX 21
ADAMS/ADAM GRAY/GETTY IMAGES / BAGS/ GARDINER ANDERSON FOR NY DAILY NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
