It seems so familiar: A Democratic city with crime rates at historic lows finds itself in a panic over an uptick in certain crimes during the pandemic. Politicians scramble to respond with simplistic solutions. Republicans depict every new criminal act as a direct consequence of liberal policy. No amount of data can disabuse scared citizens of the notion that things are worse than ever. The scapegoating begins.
San Francisco? Nope. This is what’s happening in New York City, according to a recent Bloomberg story detailing how the Big Apple finds itself gripped by crime fears. The anxiety is rising even though the new mayor, Eric Adams, is a former police officer who campaigned as a tough crime fighter.
“Perhaps nowhere has the perception of rampant crime overpowered the reality more than in New York City,” wrote Bloomberg’s Fola Akinnibi and Raeedah Wahid in a story headlined “Fear of rampant crime is derailing New York City’s recovery.”
I beg to differ. Nowhere has the politically motivated hysteria over crime had more impact than in San Francisco, which recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin due to an unprecedented crime wave that, according to the data, never really occurred.
A similar mass delusion is manifesting in NYC. If Republicans get their way, it will soon sweep the nation as part of a strategy to wield crime as a political weapon against Democrats, much as Richard Nixon and other GOP politicians did in previous eras.
Statistically speaking, however, today’s crime rates are far lower than in previous decades. In fact, NYC is a lot safer than some smaller cities in Republican states. Yet a national spike in murders that started in 2020, coupled with constant media coverage of rare but heinous crimes, has created a feeling that NYC is totally unsafe.
“A rash of high-profile incidents in subway stations and tourist hubs — and an outspoken new mayor who’s made crime-fighting his signature issue — has intensified scrutiny on public safety,” according to Bloomberg. “A generation of younger New Yorkers are seeing a sustained rise in crime, instead of a decline, for the first time in their lifetimes.”
All crime is bad. Every murder is an inconsolable tragedy. It’s important, however, to be aware that no modern society has eradicated crime — and that we are much safer now than in past decades.
For example: Last year, NYC recorded 488 murders, up 4% from the 468 murders in 2020. How does that compare with previous years?
“The number of murders in 2010 was 536, in 2000 was 673, and in 1990 was 2,262,” according to Reuters.
As in California, some political actors in the Empire State are blaming increased crime on progressive reforms. Mayor Adams and police unions point the finger at bail reform laws in an effort to pass the buck to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. Her Republican opponent, Lee Zeldin, blames Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s progressive district attorney. If elected, Zeldin promises to fire Bragg on his first day.
New York doesn’t have recall elections, which explains why Zeldin must resort to threats. Legal experts say his pledge to fire DA Bragg is somewhat dubious. The same can be said for the claim that NYC’s new DA is responsible for an uptick in crime that started before he took office.
As the Boudin recall proved, however, the facts don’t always matter. If you can make the blame narrative stick, you win.
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One big difference between SF and NYC: Mayor Adams, the former NYPD officer, pretty much put himself on the hook for results by exploiting the crime issue in his mayoral race. How’s that working out?
“Adams banked his mayoralty on public safety,” read a Politico headline in April. “Crime skyrocketed during his first 100 days in office.”
Now, Adams is so desperate for a scapegoat that he’s blaming the media. After a June poll showed voters giving him low marks and expressing deep concern over crime, Adams criticized the press.
“I don’t know if we realize the role of what blasts on our front pages every day,” said Adams, according to the NYC news outlet Hell Gate, arguing that the media’s incessant focus on crime makes people feel unsafe.
Adams is correct in pointing out the media’s unhealthy addiction to lurid crimes, but he’s also a victim of his own success.
“Media coverage has followed Adams’s lead,” wrote the Bloomberg reporters. “There were nearly 800 stories per month across all digital and print media about crime in New York City following Adams’s inauguration, according to an analysis of data compiled by Media Cloud. That compares to an average 132 stories per month during the eight-year tenure of the previous mayor, Bill de Blasio.”
Boudin’s critics said his background as a public defender helped to embolden criminals. In New York, it would appear that criminals have been emboldened by the election of a cop.
In reality, local politicians rarely exert direct control over crime rates, which tend to mirror national trends and have generally been at historic lows in New York and San Francisco. But the GOP, which excels at using the crime issue as a political weapon against Democrats and has been stoking the crime panic, won’t let pesky facts stand in the way.
Last week, Donald Trump threatened to deploy the “national guard or the troops” to “restore order” in Democratic cities if he gets re-elected.
Of course, as I’ve written before, red states have much higher crime rates than blue states.
“In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden,” according to “The Red State Murder Problem,” a report from Third Way, a Washington think tank. “Eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.”
Yes, Republican leaders are the ones seriously failing on public safety. But you wouldn’t know that from watching certain Democratic leaders flail about in an apparent effort to make false GOP claims appear true.
Gil Duran is Editorial Page Editor of The San Francisco Examiner. @gilduran76
