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Billy Cunningham, the great American.
Of course, we have a great divide

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in America between the criminals and the
politicians. When I watch the morning shows,

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I'm always learning that the crime rate
is way down, which I think

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is a canard. It's not way
down. I think crime is up,

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but the arrest and prosecution and sentencing
is way down. But nonetheless, Josh

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Crawford is a nationally renowned criminal justice
expert, and he has a column in

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The Hill that says there's a crime
divide between Americans and politicians and voters are

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watching, including fund the play,
including defund the police, et cetera.

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And for the first time, I
think, Josh Crawford, welcome to the

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Bill Cunningham Show. And can you
tell the American people your column specifically talking

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about the crime divide between Americans and
politicians and the voters are watching. Please

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explain to the American people. Well, thank you for having me. And

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what the piece is essentially about is
that there is this disconnect between the average

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American and our political class on the
issue of crime right now, that what

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folks are seeing around them is what
you articulated. They're seeing things like drive

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by shootings and carjackings on the rise, they're seeing smash and grab robberies on

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the rise. And what we're hearing
from politicians time and time again is that

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they need not worry about that crime
is down. You know, don't worry

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about what your lying eyes are showing
you. And what's interesting is the broad

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depth or the broad width with which
voters are caring about this. That Republican

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primary voters care about this issue quite
significantly, and Black Americans care about this

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issue quite significantly. So it's not
necessarily partisan among the voters, but it

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does seem to be among the politicians. I find it amazing that when you're

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trying to sell something that cannot be
bought by the voters or by average Americans,

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you keep doing it nonetheless. And
it is an article of faith among

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the left in this country that crime
is way down, that FBI statistics indicate

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that crime is down. I've had
on John Lott and many others that actually

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reference the fact that about thirty percent
of cities do not report crime to the

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FBI database, and that we have
many judges, including here in Cincinnati,

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that if it's a juvenile under the
age of eighteen, they put them on

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the diversion dock and in which case
there's no conviction, there's no sentencing at

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all, and police are demoralized,
have had on head of the FOP,

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etc. The cops are demoralized,
and cops are feeling as if why arrest

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somebody when nothing happens anyway, and
I might put myself at risk and I'll

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be fired and sued for the rest
of my life. I don't have a

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limited immunity, so I can't ever
buy a house or a car, so

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I'm as well not do anything.
And so in reality, Joshua Crawford,

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what is the reality about crime in
America today, especially when we have maybe

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seven or eight million additional people here, young males that come here without work

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skills, so to speak, and
they have done a lot to do.

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So what is the reality of crime
in America today? What is your perspective?

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Yeah, so there are two major
national sources of crime data. One

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is the one that you reference those
FBI numbers that are collections of official statistics

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from police departments, And that's a
voluntary program, and there were some changes

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made a number of years ago,
and participation in that FBI program is even

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less than it used to be.
And so those numbers are the official statistics,

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they sometimes don't match up with the
departmental statistics of major cities and are

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a bit less reliable today than they
have been in the past because of that

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non participation. The other major nationwide
set of crime statisticts comes from something that's

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called the National Crime Victimization Survey,
and what that is is a survey of

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Americans that ask various questions about crime
victimization. And so because of that second

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set of data, we've known for
a long time that Americans don't really report

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property crime. That essentially, unless
your car is stolen, most proper recrime

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goes unreported to law enforcement. What
has emerged in the last year or so,

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though, is that Americans are not
reporting pretty dramatic levels of violent crime

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as well, serious assaults, robberies, those kinds of things. And so

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the official statistics, or the arrest
statistics or the statistius given law enforcement show

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some declines in those areas. But
there's pretty good reason to believe that a

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lot of those declines are the result
of not reporting crime as opposed to crime

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actually being down. And why aren't
citizens reporting crimes? I would think if

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your car gets broken into two or
three times, you don't call the police

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anymore. If things get stolen from
your store and you walk out under one

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thousand dollars, you don't call the
police anymore. But I would think that

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if you're assaulted, if you're beaten
a burglary, if you're sexually assaulted,

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you want to call the police.
But you're saying that even in many blue

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cities and blue states, and in
blue cities and red states, that individuals

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of assaults and robbery and armed robberies
they're not calling the police either. Why

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a lot of it is that same
demoralization that you spoke to earlier, that

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citizens feel that same lack of trust
in the institutions of public safety, that

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the actors of those institutions feel that
law enforcement feels like, oh, I

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can make this arrest, I can
do this pursuit, but it's not going

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to go anywhere because I live in
a jurisdiction with a progressive prosecutor who is

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going to dismiss the case, or
we've got a judiciary that doesn't take these

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issues seriously, and these guys are
going to be right back out on the

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street. The American people have largely
responded to that, and it's led to

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two things. It's led to an
increase in self help justice, sort of

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vigilanteism, if you will. That
has problems associated with it, but it

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also has the problem with people just
not reporting crimes, and again more serious

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crimes than we've typically seen it in
the past. You see I read in

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your column in the Hill it says
this crime, especially violent crimes, saw

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its peak as an election issue in
the mid nineteen nineties. I'll stop right

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there. In the mid nineteen nine
Bill Clinton ran a campaign in nineteen ninety

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six of hiring one hundred thousand more
cops, and then Joe Biden headquartered the

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idea of under the leadership of the
NAACP, that crack cocaine needs to be

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treated equally with powdered cocaine, in
fact, giving more penalties for crack cocaine.

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And so when I tell Democrats today, well, in the mid nineteen

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nineties, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton
wanted more cops and more incarceration, which

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impacted the black community more than other
communities. People look at me like I'm

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crazy, But there was a time
when Bill Clinton wanted more money, one

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hundred thousand more cops. Many cities
were given the money under a three year

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program than they had to fund it
themselves. After that that, the Democratic

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Party stood for closed borders, and
they also stood for the issue of more

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cops and treating crack cocaine worse than
powder cocaine, and people their eyes glazed

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over. Was that successful? Why
did it happen? And why do Democrats

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do it today? Yeah, you're
actually starting to see what I refer to

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is sort of the law and order
Democrat re emerge at the local level.

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You've not seen them sort of break
out into national politics, but in cities

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like Philadelphia and Houston, Texas and
a few other places, you've seen basically

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the most law and order oriented Democrat
mayor ol candidate win mayoral primaries and then

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go on to win the general election. In these places. You are seeing

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in some of the bluest jurisdictions in
the country San Francisco, California, Portland,

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Oregon, law and order oriented prosecutors
beat sort of sorrow specked progressive prosecutor

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incumbents, and so you are seeing
this re emerge some on the local level.

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You've not really seen it play in
national politics yet. The national tone

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from the Democrats still is sort of
defund the police light, if you will.

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But at the local level, even
in some of the most progressive jurisdictions

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in the country, because business associations
are fed up, because residents in the

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neighborhood's most plagued by its violence are
fed up, you're beginning to see that

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tonal shift back to some of what
you saw in the nineteen nineties. I

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used to go to San Francisco as
part of the ABA American Bar Association for

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meetings, and at that point,
you walked around a fisherman's wharf, you

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walked around downtown. It was gorgeous. There was some goofy road that was

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like a serpent's thank you go up
and down that. And now Tony Bender

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and others made vacation in San Francisco
and it comes back with video of all

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the downtown stores are shut down,
and there's a poop map where not to

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walk. There's lots of human poop, and there's hyperdermic needles, and there's

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tents all over the place. And
I look at a column, Joshua Crawford

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that you have up that says the
following. According to analysis of data by

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former director of the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Jeffrey Anderson said, total violent

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crime is up fifty eight percent in
urban areas since twenty nineteen. If you

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remove simple assaults, serious violent crimes
in America is up seventy three percent since

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twenty nineteen. How do you prove
a negative if there's not reporting being done,

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if citizens are demoralized and they don't
want to report crime, and cops

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don't want to arrest anybody anymore,
and judges release them constantly with no bond,

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how do you know? How do
you know violent crime is up seventy

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three percent the last four years?
When you can't prove a negative, So

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explain that to the American people.
Yeah, So that comes from those National

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Crime Victimization Survey results, and so
we compare those year over year. And

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that's what doctor Anderson did with regard
to the most recent Crime Victimization Survey results.

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And again, we have known for
a long time that the those numbers

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and the Uniform Crime Report FBI numbers
have always been different because they ask different

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things, they seek different data.
But what is pretty dramatic over the last

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several years is that in one the
crime victimization surveys you see dramatic increases in

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victimization, and then the official numbers
you see pretty substantial declines in victimization.

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So there's a disconnect there between what
Americans are saying is happening to them and

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what official statistics show, and so
that's a problem. A great liberal columnist

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for the New York Times wrote a
peace taking the states of Washington, Oregon,

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and California, which is the Situs. It's the Jerusalem of progressivism.

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All their policies have been fully implemented. There's no Republicans to be located anywhere

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in those three states. The eastern
half of Oregon wants to get out of

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Oregon to join Idaho, which is
almost impossible because the Congress right have to

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agree to that. But she made
the point that we will not continue to

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win elections even in Oregon or Portland. You point out that there were two

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district council members in deep blue Portland
that lost their jobs, including the permissive

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prosecutor. That she's making the point
to prove that liberalism and progressivism actually work.

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It must work in the state of
Washington, Oregon, and California,

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and by any fair estimate, nobody
believes that progressive as some of liberalism is

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working in those three states. Was
that a clarion call from someone on the

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left that we have to do things
different? I think so, you know,

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I think in some of the sort
of left of center intellectual circles,

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you're seeing this call for moderation that
sort of in the wake of the killing

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of George Floyd, the left sort
of most radical elements and its worst ideas

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on public safety emerged victorious. And
you saw a number of changes all around

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the country, but especially in the
most progressive jurisdictions, the Portland Oregons,

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the Seattle, Washington's, the San
Francisco California is the Oakland Californias, those

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kinds of places, and they're the
places that have been hit harder with the

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hardest with this. I mean,
Seattle has continued to have deadliest year after

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deadliest year over the last several years. Portland had substantial increases in homicides and

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other types of violence over the last
several years. And you're seeing in those

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places, especially among prosecutors. You
know, Seattle has a Republican city attorney

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right now that would have been unfathomable
a number of years ago. Portland has

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thrown out its progressive prosecutor in favor
of a more traditional law and order prosecutor.

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And so I think you're seeing voters
are who are again fed up with

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this issue. Safety security, Public
safety and public order are sort of the

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most foundational responsibility of government, and
what you're seeing is these jurisdictions fail that

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responsibility in such a way that voters
are rejecting the ideology. And Joshua Crawford,

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lastly, I'm watching CNN the other
night and a guy named Anton,

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who's pretty good. I laugh at
that guy, and he had a pull

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up that at this time four years
ago, Biden was had eighty two percent

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of the Black vote locked up.
It turned out to be ninety one percent,

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and now it's down to like thirty
five percent. Is a collapse a

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black voters supporting Joe Biden the Democrats? And I guess there's a canar to

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lie out there that somehow black folks
living in major cities and urban areas don't

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care about crime, but in reality
they care about it the most. Do

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you think the collapse of black support
for Joe Biden one of the maybe the

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main reason, is the lack of
public safety in their community promised by liberal

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Democrats but destroyed, and black folks
are finally figuring it out. I think

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that that's a major contributor. In
the twenty twenty two election, where you

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saw crime have the most impact on
voters of changing voting patterns was in urban,

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majority minority communities. Now, these
communities tended to send progressive Democrats back

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to Washington, d c. In
those midterm elections, but you saw these

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shifts that in a statewide election would
make a major difference in this like Philadelphia

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and Saint Louis and Detroit and so
a lot of these states that are in

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play in the twenty twenty four election. And so if those voting patterns hold

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like they were in twenty twenty two, you may see a shift among black

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voters in inner cities on the crime
issue that benefits former President Trump or especially

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in the case of former Governor Larry
Hogan's Senate race in Maryland, this seems

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to be a very particularly palpitable issue
for voters in Maryland in the Baltimore area.

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So those voters aren't buying what the
Democrats are selling that crime is way

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down historically, this is wonderful.
They're looking around saying, no, wait

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a minute, Harry Anton, what
are you talking about here? Crime is

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not down. I can't walk at
night, I got my kids. Got

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drive by shooting Cincinnati, Ohio,
said repeated drive by shootings, and almost

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all the victims, almost all the
victims are black, and most of the

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perpetrators are black. The face of
crime in urban America is a young black

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male face. But the great majority
of young black males have nothing to do

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with crime. They're victimized by it. And I anticipate this could a watershed

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election, but we'll see what happens. The black folks were Republican voters from

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the eighteen sixties through the nineteen forties
into the nineteen fifties, and even Richard

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Nixon received something like forty eight percent
of the black vote in nineteen sixty and

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still lost. But maybe black folks
have now not listened to what the media

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tell them to do. They look
around their own life and say, we

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don't have to live like this,
and maybe this will be the difference.

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But Josh Crawford, once again,
great, thank you for coming on the

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Bill Cunningham Show, and keep doing
what you're doing and keep writing columns for

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The Hill. Hill dot com is
pretty good stuff. Thanks for having me,

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Joshua Crawford. All right, that's
the warning and we'll see what happens.

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Bill cunning and the Great American with
you every day. You're home of

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the Reds News Radio seven hundred WLW
attention golfers join