Democrats should ditch pro-crime policies
The conventional wisdom from politicos and progressives alike is that any Democrat who talks tough on crime is pandering to moderate White voters or disaffected Republicans. That’s wrong, and surveys show that ignoring the problem would abandon a key part of Democrats’ base.
Reducing crime ranks among the top 10 issues for voters overall, according to Pew Research data, but there’s also a striking race gap: Sixty-eight percent of Black voters say it should be a top priority for President Biden compared to just 54 percent of White voters. This trend was also true in the 2022 midterm elections, when only one-third of White Democratic voters said violent crime was very important to how they would vote compared to 82 percent of Black Democratic voters.
No one understands the potency of this issue more than Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who in 2022 ended up in the closest gubernatorial race in New York since 1994 after Republican challenger Lee Zeldin relentlessly campaigned on residents’ fears of violence. Since then, she has tried to recalibrate to help Democrats avoid similar attacks in 2024. Her decision last month to deploy the National Guard to New York City’s subway system for increased bag checks reflects a significant shift in how Democrats tackle crime.
“These efforts are not always associated with Democrats,” Hochul said in a recent phone interview. “But it doesn’t mean that we are taking the Republican playbook. It’s our job to do this. This is not a new awakening. I’ve always believed that it’s our job to protect people.”
Last year, Hochul signed stricter bail laws as a way to address crime, angering progressives who feared the changes would result in more people being jailed and “mass inequality.” While Hochul continues to face opposition from her party’s left wing, they’re just not as influential in the crime debate as they once were. Democrats in places like New York City, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are more in line with Hochul’s approach than her critics.
It’s remarkable how much the conversation around policing has changed since George Floyd’s murder in 2020. His senseless killing ignited a movement to reform the criminal justice system and rethink how police departments operate. But passionate proposals from a small minority of leftists, namely to defund the police, exacerbated the perception that Democrats are out of touch with reality, handing Republicans a winning attack in competitive races. Now, more moderate Democrats are working to change the age-old perception that their party is “soft” on crime.
“This should be an area where Democrats are leaning in,” Hochul told me. “Lean into the fact that Republicans are the ones who aren’t serious about public safety or fighting crime because they’re not serious about getting guns off the streets . ... That’s a big difference between us.”
Hochul’s plan to increase police presence on the subway received criticism from those on the left who say it’s reminiscent of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policies that disproportionately affected people of color. Others have said it’s “militarizing the subway,” wasting resources and could “further criminalize the public on public transit.”
Critics are right that simply deploying the National Guard won’t ease fears alone. But her plan also invests $20 million in comprehensive mental health services, which shouldn’t be ignored. She also explained, “My job is to deal with the psychology of crime, which is paralyzing. People see horrific cases blaring on the front pages of our newspapers in New York City, and it creates a sense of unease, which really affects people’s mental health and their ability to cope with what else is going on.”
That “sense of unease” matters – no matter how much her critics want to ignore it. It affects people’s day-to-day life – where they live, how they get around, what they do for fun. Concerns about over-policing are valid but so are concerns about violence, which disproportionately affect people of color.
What politicians should avoid is New York Mayor Eric Adams’s recent remarks about crime on the subway. While he supports Hochul’s efforts to make it safer, he insists that crime on the system is rare. As he said in a recent interview with “The Breakfast Club,” “We have six felonies a day on our subway system out of 4 million riders. Look at those numbers. Our subway system is a safe system.”
That sort of “it’s all in your head” messaging isn’t going to work.