Billy Cunningham, the great American. Of course, we have a great divide
in America between the criminals and the politicians. When I watch the morning shows,
I'm always learning that the crime rate is way down, which I think
is a canard. It's not way down. I think crime is up,
but the arrest and prosecution and sentencing is way down. But nonetheless, Josh
Crawford is a nationally renowned criminal justice expert, and he has a column in
The Hill that says there's a crime divide between Americans and politicians and voters are
watching, including fund the play, including defund the police, et cetera.
And for the first time, I think, Josh Crawford, welcome to the
Bill Cunningham Show. And can you tell the American people your column specifically talking
about the crime divide between Americans and politicians and the voters are watching. Please
explain to the American people. Well, thank you for having me. And
what the piece is essentially about is that there is this disconnect between the average
American and our political class on the issue of crime right now, that what
folks are seeing around them is what you articulated. They're seeing things like drive
by shootings and carjackings on the rise, they're seeing smash and grab robberies on
the rise. And what we're hearing from politicians time and time again is that
they need not worry about that crime is down. You know, don't worry
about what your lying eyes are showing you. And what's interesting is the broad
depth or the broad width with which voters are caring about this. That Republican
primary voters care about this issue quite significantly, and Black Americans care about this
issue quite significantly. So it's not necessarily partisan among the voters, but it
does seem to be among the politicians. I find it amazing that when you're
trying to sell something that cannot be bought by the voters or by average Americans,
you keep doing it nonetheless. And it is an article of faith among
the left in this country that crime is way down, that FBI statistics indicate
that crime is down. I've had on John Lott and many others that actually
reference the fact that about thirty percent of cities do not report crime to the
FBI database, and that we have many judges, including here in Cincinnati,
that if it's a juvenile under the age of eighteen, they put them on
the diversion dock and in which case there's no conviction, there's no sentencing at
all, and police are demoralized, have had on head of the FOP,
etc. The cops are demoralized, and cops are feeling as if why arrest
somebody when nothing happens anyway, and I might put myself at risk and I'll
be fired and sued for the rest of my life. I don't have a
limited immunity, so I can't ever buy a house or a car, so
I'm as well not do anything. And so in reality, Joshua Crawford,
what is the reality about crime in America today, especially when we have maybe
seven or eight million additional people here, young males that come here without work
skills, so to speak, and they have done a lot to do.
So what is the reality of crime in America today? What is your perspective?
Yeah, so there are two major national sources of crime data. One
is the one that you reference those FBI numbers that are collections of official statistics
from police departments, And that's a voluntary program, and there were some changes
made a number of years ago, and participation in that FBI program is even
less than it used to be. And so those numbers are the official statistics,
they sometimes don't match up with the departmental statistics of major cities and are
a bit less reliable today than they have been in the past because of that
non participation. The other major nationwide set of crime statisticts comes from something that's
called the National Crime Victimization Survey, and what that is is a survey of
Americans that ask various questions about crime victimization. And so because of that second
set of data, we've known for a long time that Americans don't really report
property crime. That essentially, unless your car is stolen, most proper recrime
goes unreported to law enforcement. What has emerged in the last year or so,
though, is that Americans are not reporting pretty dramatic levels of violent crime
as well, serious assaults, robberies, those kinds of things. And so
the official statistics, or the arrest statistics or the statistius given law enforcement show
some declines in those areas. But there's pretty good reason to believe that a
lot of those declines are the result of not reporting crime as opposed to crime
actually being down. And why aren't citizens reporting crimes? I would think if
your car gets broken into two or three times, you don't call the police
anymore. If things get stolen from your store and you walk out under one
thousand dollars, you don't call the police anymore. But I would think that
if you're assaulted, if you're beaten a burglary, if you're sexually assaulted,
you want to call the police. But you're saying that even in many blue
cities and blue states, and in blue cities and red states, that individuals
of assaults and robbery and armed robberies they're not calling the police either. Why
a lot of it is that same demoralization that you spoke to earlier, that
citizens feel that same lack of trust in the institutions of public safety, that
the actors of those institutions feel that law enforcement feels like, oh, I
can make this arrest, I can do this pursuit, but it's not going
to go anywhere because I live in a jurisdiction with a progressive prosecutor who is
going to dismiss the case, or we've got a judiciary that doesn't take these
issues seriously, and these guys are going to be right back out on the
street. The American people have largely responded to that, and it's led to
two things. It's led to an increase in self help justice, sort of
vigilanteism, if you will. That has problems associated with it, but it
also has the problem with people just not reporting crimes, and again more serious
crimes than we've typically seen it in the past. You see I read in
your column in the Hill it says this crime, especially violent crimes, saw
its peak as an election issue in the mid nineteen nineties. I'll stop right
there. In the mid nineteen nine Bill Clinton ran a campaign in nineteen ninety
six of hiring one hundred thousand more cops, and then Joe Biden headquartered the
idea of under the leadership of the NAACP, that crack cocaine needs to be
treated equally with powdered cocaine, in fact, giving more penalties for crack cocaine.
And so when I tell Democrats today, well, in the mid nineteen
nineties, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton wanted more cops and more incarceration, which
impacted the black community more than other communities. People look at me like I'm
crazy, But there was a time when Bill Clinton wanted more money, one
hundred thousand more cops. Many cities were given the money under a three year
program than they had to fund it themselves. After that that, the Democratic
Party stood for closed borders, and they also stood for the issue of more
cops and treating crack cocaine worse than powder cocaine, and people their eyes glazed
over. Was that successful? Why did it happen? And why do Democrats
do it today? Yeah, you're actually starting to see what I refer to
is sort of the law and order Democrat re emerge at the local level.
You've not seen them sort of break out into national politics, but in cities
like Philadelphia and Houston, Texas and a few other places, you've seen basically
the most law and order oriented Democrat mayor ol candidate win mayoral primaries and then
go on to win the general election. In these places. You are seeing
in some of the bluest jurisdictions in the country San Francisco, California, Portland,
Oregon, law and order oriented prosecutors beat sort of sorrow specked progressive prosecutor
incumbents, and so you are seeing this re emerge some on the local level.
You've not really seen it play in national politics yet. The national tone
from the Democrats still is sort of defund the police light, if you will.
But at the local level, even in some of the most progressive jurisdictions
in the country, because business associations are fed up, because residents in the
neighborhood's most plagued by its violence are fed up, you're beginning to see that
tonal shift back to some of what you saw in the nineteen nineties. I
used to go to San Francisco as part of the ABA American Bar Association for
meetings, and at that point, you walked around a fisherman's wharf, you
walked around downtown. It was gorgeous. There was some goofy road that was
like a serpent's thank you go up and down that. And now Tony Bender
and others made vacation in San Francisco and it comes back with video of all
the downtown stores are shut down, and there's a poop map where not to
walk. There's lots of human poop, and there's hyperdermic needles, and there's
tents all over the place. And I look at a column, Joshua Crawford
that you have up that says the following. According to analysis of data by
former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jeffrey Anderson said, total violent
crime is up fifty eight percent in urban areas since twenty nineteen. If you
remove simple assaults, serious violent crimes in America is up seventy three percent since
twenty nineteen. How do you prove a negative if there's not reporting being done,
if citizens are demoralized and they don't want to report crime, and cops
don't want to arrest anybody anymore, and judges release them constantly with no bond,
how do you know? How do you know violent crime is up seventy
three percent the last four years? When you can't prove a negative, So
explain that to the American people. Yeah, So that comes from those National
Crime Victimization Survey results, and so we compare those year over year. And
that's what doctor Anderson did with regard to the most recent Crime Victimization Survey results.
And again, we have known for a long time that the those numbers
and the Uniform Crime Report FBI numbers have always been different because they ask different
things, they seek different data. But what is pretty dramatic over the last
several years is that in one the crime victimization surveys you see dramatic increases in
victimization, and then the official numbers you see pretty substantial declines in victimization.
So there's a disconnect there between what Americans are saying is happening to them and
what official statistics show, and so that's a problem. A great liberal columnist
for the New York Times wrote a peace taking the states of Washington, Oregon,
and California, which is the Situs. It's the Jerusalem of progressivism.
All their policies have been fully implemented. There's no Republicans to be located anywhere
in those three states. The eastern half of Oregon wants to get out of
Oregon to join Idaho, which is almost impossible because the Congress right have to
agree to that. But she made the point that we will not continue to
win elections even in Oregon or Portland. You point out that there were two
district council members in deep blue Portland that lost their jobs, including the permissive
prosecutor. That she's making the point to prove that liberalism and progressivism actually work.
It must work in the state of Washington, Oregon, and California,
and by any fair estimate, nobody believes that progressive as some of liberalism is
working in those three states. Was that a clarion call from someone on the
left that we have to do things different? I think so, you know,
I think in some of the sort of left of center intellectual circles,
you're seeing this call for moderation that sort of in the wake of the killing
of George Floyd, the left sort of most radical elements and its worst ideas
on public safety emerged victorious. And you saw a number of changes all around
the country, but especially in the most progressive jurisdictions, the Portland Oregons,
the Seattle, Washington's, the San Francisco California is the Oakland Californias, those
kinds of places, and they're the places that have been hit harder with the
hardest with this. I mean, Seattle has continued to have deadliest year after
deadliest year over the last several years. Portland had substantial increases in homicides and
other types of violence over the last several years. And you're seeing in those
places, especially among prosecutors. You know, Seattle has a Republican city attorney
right now that would have been unfathomable a number of years ago. Portland has
thrown out its progressive prosecutor in favor of a more traditional law and order prosecutor.
And so I think you're seeing voters are who are again fed up with
this issue. Safety security, Public safety and public order are sort of the
most foundational responsibility of government, and what you're seeing is these jurisdictions fail that
responsibility in such a way that voters are rejecting the ideology. And Joshua Crawford,
lastly, I'm watching CNN the other night and a guy named Anton,
who's pretty good. I laugh at that guy, and he had a pull
up that at this time four years ago, Biden was had eighty two percent
of the Black vote locked up. It turned out to be ninety one percent,
and now it's down to like thirty five percent. Is a collapse a
black voters supporting Joe Biden the Democrats? And I guess there's a canar to
lie out there that somehow black folks living in major cities and urban areas don't
care about crime, but in reality they care about it the most. Do
you think the collapse of black support for Joe Biden one of the maybe the
main reason, is the lack of public safety in their community promised by liberal
Democrats but destroyed, and black folks are finally figuring it out. I think
that that's a major contributor. In the twenty twenty two election, where you
saw crime have the most impact on voters of changing voting patterns was in urban,
majority minority communities. Now, these communities tended to send progressive Democrats back
to Washington, d c. In those midterm elections, but you saw these
shifts that in a statewide election would make a major difference in this like Philadelphia
and Saint Louis and Detroit and so a lot of these states that are in
play in the twenty twenty four election. And so if those voting patterns hold
like they were in twenty twenty two, you may see a shift among black
voters in inner cities on the crime issue that benefits former President Trump or especially
in the case of former Governor Larry Hogan's Senate race in Maryland, this seems
to be a very particularly palpitable issue for voters in Maryland in the Baltimore area.
So those voters aren't buying what the Democrats are selling that crime is way
down historically, this is wonderful. They're looking around saying, no, wait
a minute, Harry Anton, what are you talking about here? Crime is
not down. I can't walk at night, I got my kids. Got
drive by shooting Cincinnati, Ohio, said repeated drive by shootings, and almost
all the victims, almost all the victims are black, and most of the
perpetrators are black. The face of crime in urban America is a young black
male face. But the great majority of young black males have nothing to do
with crime. They're victimized by it. And I anticipate this could a watershed
election, but we'll see what happens. The black folks were Republican voters from
the eighteen sixties through the nineteen forties into the nineteen fifties, and even Richard
Nixon received something like forty eight percent of the black vote in nineteen sixty and
still lost. But maybe black folks have now not listened to what the media
tell them to do. They look around their own life and say, we
don't have to live like this, and maybe this will be the difference.
But Josh Crawford, once again, great, thank you for coming on the
Bill Cunningham Show, and keep doing what you're doing and keep writing columns for
The Hill. Hill dot com is pretty good stuff. Thanks for having me,
Joshua Crawford. All right, that's the warning and we'll see what happens.
Bill cunning and the Great American with you every day. You're home of
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