Patrick Gaspard

Murder rates soared. But it was far higher in red states that supported Donald Trump, and in cities with Republican mayors, according to a 2022 study by Third Way. Since the country began to recover from the darkest days of COVID-19, crime rates have declined somewhat.

Tracking those rates is an imprecise science, as the country lacks uniform reporting procedures, and the FBI rolled out a new tallying system, making comparisons challenging.

But according to a study of trends in 35 cities by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, homicides, gun attacks and reports of domestic violence all dropped somewhat in 2022, while robberies and theft rose. Nationwide crime has been steadily declining for the last 25 years

Those statistics are cold comfort to communities fearing for their safety. But the simplistic scapegoating of “progressive prosecutors” makes us no safer; it’s a political smokescreen that obscures efforts to get at the root of the problem.

George Soros is as concerned about public safety as anyone else. But he recognizes that our criminal justice system is badly broken, and in need of new ideas and new approaches—a view that enjoyed bipartisan consensus in the before times.

His belief, laid out in The Wall Street Journal last summer: we need to “prioritize the resources of the criminal-justice system to protect people against violent crime….treat drug addiction as a disease…and [seek] to end the criminalization of poverty and mental illness.”

The Post and the hard-right conservatives it promotes love to cherry pick horrifying anecdotes to scare people into believing that pouring millions into mass incarceration is the answer. We tried that for decades, at enormous expense, with little impact on actual public safety.

Many of the reform prosecutors under attack have been in office for a comparatively short time. Yet the research to date shows their approaches are working. An October 22 report by the Munk School of Public Policy took a close look at their work. The result?

“We found no evidence to support the claim that progressive prosecutors were responsible for the increase in homicide during the pandemic or before it.”

It is also important to note that in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and all over the country voters keep electing and re-electing reformers. To suggest that the reason they are doing so is because of Soros contributions is an insult to ordinary people.

Soros’ contributions allow reformers to get their message out to voters, who apparently like what they are hearing and the results that are oriented to the needs of hard pressed communities.

A serious attempt to tackle crime would involve addressing this country’s mental health crisis. It would increase resources for health and community services, in a recognition that every societal ill can’t be laid at the feet of the cops.

It would hold people who break the law accountable, but hold police who use excessive force accountable as well. It would boost trainings to help police de-escalate conflicts. It would look for ways to expand affordable housing, and grapple with the challenge of guns.