Republican Cities Don’t Have Less Crime

[BeaverFever]

Crime Is Nonpartisan

Cities and states run by Republicans do not actually have less crime.

Aug. 31, 2023Updated 11:16 a.m. ET
 

 

Republican politicians often treat it as an established fact: Where they are in power, crime is low. Where Democrats are in power, crime is high.

“Republican-run cities are doing very nicely because they arrest people when you have crimes,” Donald Trump told Tucker Carlson last week.

“The cities and these left-wing states allowing criminals to run wild on our streets, that doesn’t work,” Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, said in March, citing New York in particular

But party rule does not drive crime. Consider DeSantis’s state, Florida. Its homicide rate was roughly 50 percent higher than New York’s in 2021. Florida’s two most populous cities, Jacksonville and Miami, each had a homicide rate more than double New York City’s last year, even though both had Republican mayors.
 

This is not to say Republican leadership leads to more crime. You can find examples of blue states and cities doing worse than Florida, and of other red states and cities doing better. Looking at all the data, it is hard to make much of any connection between political partisanship and crime. To put it another way, prominent Republicans are misrepresenting the country’s crime problem.

Comparing places

The Republican claim is rooted in a real pattern. Big cities generally have higher crime rates than rural and suburban areas, thanks to their density and other factors. Democrats run most big cities because urban areas tend to contain more liberal voters. So when looking at the places with the most murders, you’ll often find Democratic-run cities. But that is not the whole story.

Take the 20 largest U.S. cities. The 16 run by Democratic mayors had 12.3 murders for every 100,000 people. The three Republican-run cities — Jacksonville, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City — had a rate of 11.4. There is a difference, but it is small. (I’m focused on murders because the data for them is more reliable than for other crimes, which go underreported.)

Those rates mask a lot of variation. In a ranked list of murders for all 20 cities, the three Republican-run cities fall around the middle. Some blue cities — such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle — have roughly half the murder rates as their red counterparts, while the rates in other blue cities, like Philadelphia, Indianapolis and Chicago, are two to three times as high.
 

That variation is the point: Whether a big city is run by Democrats or Republicans has little influence on its murder rate.

 

The same is true at the state level for homicides, as this map by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:

Homicide rates by state

A map shows homicide rates by state. Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest rates at 23.7 and 21.3 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively. Among the lowest rates are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wyoming.

Deaths per 100,000 people (see article for legend)

 

 

Note: Data is from 2021.

Source: C.D.C.

By The New York Times

Once again, it’s hard to see a strong link between party rule and killings. The four deadliest states are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and New Mexico. Two have Democratic governors, and two have Republican governors. Some red states look bad, and some look good. The same is true for blue states.

Deeper causes

So what drives higher crime rates? The state map offers a few answers. Rural areas tend to have lower crime and murder rates. (But when murders surged and then fell across the U.S. starting in 2020, rural places experienced a similar pattern.) Poverty and race play a role, both of which are historically linked to violence in cities.

Access to guns is another major factor, particularly for murders. Guns make any conflict more likely to escalate into deadly violence, and they can embolden criminals. On this issue, there is a partisan divide — Democrats are more comfortable regulating firearms — and that could help explain higher levels of violence in Republican states, especially in the South. It can also explain violence in cities, which get a lot of guns from Southern states with laxer laws.
 

There are many more variables. It is a point that this newsletter has madebefore: Crime is a complicated issue, touching on personal disputes, the economy, social services and, really, almost every other aspect of society. Only a few factors are significant enough to make a big difference by themselves — and partisanship is not one of them.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/briefing/crime.html

[TreeBeard]

What?  But a country/western singers says otherwise!!

[WestCanMan]

Are there GOP cities where groups of people organize the random looting of stores?

Are there GOP cities where you can steal under $1,000 from a store and almost nothing will happen? 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/these-reform-prosecutors-are-shaking-system-pro-police-groups-aren-n1033286

Quote

Progressive, reform-minded prosecutors have taken the reins in top local prosecutor roles across the country that have allowed them to begin to change the criminal justice system from the inside out.

...

And they've vowed to hold police accountable for alleged wrongdoing. 

FYI "Changing the system from the inside out" means "utterly ignoring democratically arrived-at laws". It's no difference than if judges exceed sentencing regulations and give out overly harsh sentences for things like "walking through a door that the police just said you could walk through".

An example of the above "hero DA's":

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/crimes-las-prosecute

Quote

As of Tuesday, many misdemeanor cases will be declined or dismissed prior to arraignment unless "factors for considerations" exist. The list of offenses includes trespassing, disturbing the peace, a minor in possession of alcohol, driving without a license, driving with a suspended license, making criminal threats, drug and paraphernalia possession, being under the influence of a controlled substance, public intoxication, loitering to commit prostitution and resisting arrest.

Sure, it sounds innocuous to de-criminalize "driving with a suspended license", but that's akin to decriminalizing drunk driving. Driving under suspension is serious. The threat of getting your license suspended should be serious. Now it is meaningless in LA. 

Also, making criminal threats is actually a big deal. It takes a lot to get charged for that: only serious instances of credible threats are considered. Or should I say "were considered". 

Edited September 1, 2023 by WestCanMan

[Rebound]

7 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Are there GOP cities where groups of people organize the random looting of stores?

Are there GOP cities where you can steal under $1,000 from a store and almost nothing will happen? 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/these-reform-prosecutors-are-shaking-system-pro-police-groups-aren-n1033286

FYI "Changing the system from the inside out" means "utterly ignoring democratically arrived-at laws". It's no difference than if judges exceed sentencing regulations and give out overly harsh sentences for things like "walking through a door that the police just said you could walk through".

An example of the above "hero DA's":

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/crimes-las-prosecute

Sure, it sounds innocuous to de-criminalize "driving with a suspended license", but that's akin to decriminalizing drunk driving. Driving under suspension is serious. The threat of getting your license suspended should be serious. Now it is meaningless in LA. 

Also, making criminal threats is actually a big deal. It takes a lot to get charged for that: only serious instances of credible threats are considered. Or should I say "were considered". 

Blah blah blah blah… is there more crime in “Democrat” cities? No.  

[Nationalist]

 

You Libbies...along with your buddies from BLM and ANTIFA...shat all over the police.

Now this is completely normal. You wanna distract and warp the conversation in this thread, but it is YOU twits who made the bed for this jack-assery.!

[Rebound]

31 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

 

You Libbies...along with your buddies from BLM and ANTIFA...shat all over the police.

Now this is completely normal. You wanna distract and warp the conversation in this thread, but it is YOU twits who made the bed for this jack-assery.!

The Trumpers did worse on January 6

[Nationalist]

20 minutes ago, Rebound said:

The Trumpers did worse on January 6

Oh really? Killed people and burned down buildings did they?

Really man...don't be stupid.

[Rebound]

1 minute ago, Nationalist said:

Oh really? Killed people and burned down buildings did they?

Really man...don't be stupd.

Killer people and attacked the US Congress.  
 

Speaking of stupld: If someone injures someone else and they later die as a result of their injuries, it’s murder.  
Officer Brian Sicknick

Officer Howard Liebengood

Officer Jeffrey Smith

 

[Nationalist]

6 minutes ago, Rebound said:

Killer people and attacked the US Congress.  
 

Speaking of stupld: If someone injures someone else and they later die as a result of their injuries, it’s murder.  
Officer Brian Sicknick

Officer Howard Liebengood

Officer Jeffrey Smith

 

NOBODY...but Babbit...was "killed" at or as a result of the Jan. 6th riot.

Libbie summer of love...several shot...hundreds of millions...if not more...in damages...government buildings attacked and burned down...thousands of businesses ruined.

Your lies are so bloody ridiculous that I'm actually embarrassed for you.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Nationalist

[CdnFox]

10 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

Libbie summer of love...several shot...hundreds of millions...if not more...in damages

4 billion was the final tally i believe from all riots that year. George Floyd alone was 2 billion

https://fee.org/articles/george-floyd-riots-caused-record-setting-2-billion-in-damage-new-report-says-here-s-why-the-true-cost-is-even-higher/

 

[BeaverFever]

11 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Are there GOP cities where groups of people organize the random looting of stores?

Are there GOP cities where you can steal under $1,000 from a store and almost nothing will happen? 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/these-reform-prosecutors-are-shaking-system-pro-police-groups-aren-n1033286

FYI "Changing the system from the inside out" means "utterly ignoring democratically arrived-at laws". It's no difference than if judges exceed sentencing regulations and give out overly harsh sentences for things like "walking through a door that the police just said you could walk through".

An example of the above "hero DA's":

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/crimes-las-prosecute

Sure, it sounds innocuous to de-criminalize "driving with a suspended license", but that's akin to decriminalizing drunk driving. Driving under suspension is serious. The threat of getting your license suspended should be serious. Now it is meaningless in LA. 

Also, making criminal threats is actually a big deal. It takes a lot to get charged for that: only serious instances of credible threats are considered. Or should I say "were considered". 

1) The facts and statistics speak for themselves 

2) Don’t make it sound like the  riots which happened years ago are regular occurrences, or that just because Republicans don’t protest against racism and police brutality their cities are more law abiding. Those are just places where the racism and brutality is accepted. 

3) Decriminalizing minor offences is not the same as legalizing them, or the same as decriminalizing major offences. Drunk driving is not a minor offence and is not decriminalized. 
 

4) American prosecutors have always had broad discretion in how to apply their power amd the right wing is only angry because that discretion is usually used as a weapon AGAINST the working class and poor instead of a tool to help them. Like when prosecutors decide at their discretion to charge people with felonies instead of misdemeanours in order to secure a quick guilty plea or fluff their “tough on crime” credentials for voters.  American prosecutors sent hundreds if not thousands of people to life sentences for petty crimes like shoplifting a cookie -mostly people struggling with homeless and addictions - because “3 strikes” laws allowed prosecutors to count misdemeanours as a third felony and therefore seek a life sentence.  Now Republicans are crying because some guy who’s too poor to pay for his license renewal or insurance on time isn’t ripped away from his job and family and made a felon permanently ineligible to vote or earn a legal living wage. 
 

Meanwhile America’s wealthy have always enjoyed the benefits and privileges of prosecutorial discretion in USA, (and if unlucky with prosecutors, the judicial discretion from judges is their safety net). You never her Republican complain about THAT.

In Texas COVID is a hoax but “Affluenza” is a real disability that allows wealthy unrepentant killers in Texas to live free. I also never heard the Republican media’s squawk about the Dupont family fortune heir who plead guilty sodomizing his own 3-yr old child without getting jail time and having the court records sealed to boot.   But a poor person not getting thrown in the hole for a minor infraction sets them on fire for days. 
 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by BeaverFever

[WestCanMan]

4 hours ago, Rebound said:

Blah blah blah blah… is there more crime in “Democrat” cities? No.  

Are you honestly gonna ignore the major issue of DA's changing the laws that were created in proper legislative bodies? 

Are you honestly gonna ignore the destruction of communities that is being done to society by allowing shoplifting on a massive scale? 

I know that you cheered on the destruction of communities during the BLM riots, so those aren't rhetorical questions. 

[reason10]

18 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Crime Is Nonpartisan

Cities and states run by Republicans do not actually have less crime.

Aug. 31, 2023Updated 11:16 a.m. ET
 

 

Republican politicians often treat it as an established fact: Where they are in power, crime is low. Where Democrats are in power, crime is high.

“Republican-run cities are doing very nicely because they arrest people when you have crimes,” Donald Trump told Tucker Carlson last week.

“The cities and these left-wing states allowing criminals to run wild on our streets, that doesn’t work,” Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, said in March, citing New York in particular

But party rule does not drive crime. Consider DeSantis’s state, Florida. Its homicide rate was roughly 50 percent higher than New York’s in 2021. Florida’s two most populous cities, Jacksonville and Miami, each had a homicide rate more than double New York City’s last year, even though both had Republican mayors.
 

This is not to say Republican leadership leads to more crime. You can find examples of blue states and cities doing worse than Florida, and of other red states and cities doing better. Looking at all the data, it is hard to make much of any connection between political partisanship and crime. To put it another way, prominent Republicans are misrepresenting the country’s crime problem.

Comparing places

The Republican claim is rooted in a real pattern. Big cities generally have higher crime rates than rural and suburban areas, thanks to their density and other factors. Democrats run most big cities because urban areas tend to contain more liberal voters. So when looking at the places with the most murders, you’ll often find Democratic-run cities. But that is not the whole story.

Take the 20 largest U.S. cities. The 16 run by Democratic mayors had 12.3 murders for every 100,000 people. The three Republican-run cities — Jacksonville, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City — had a rate of 11.4. There is a difference, but it is small. (I’m focused on murders because the data for them is more reliable than for other crimes, which go underreported.)

Those rates mask a lot of variation. In a ranked list of murders for all 20 cities, the three Republican-run cities fall around the middle. Some blue cities — such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle — have roughly half the murder rates as their red counterparts, while the rates in other blue cities, like Philadelphia, Indianapolis and Chicago, are two to three times as high.
 

That variation is the point: Whether a big city is run by Democrats or Republicans has little influence on its murder rate.

 

The same is true at the state level for homicides, as this map by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:

Homicide rates by state

A map shows homicide rates by state. Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest rates at 23.7 and 21.3 deaths per 100,000 people, respectively. Among the lowest rates are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wyoming.

Deaths per 100,000 people (see article for legend)

 

 

Note: Data is from 2021.

Source: C.D.C.

By The New York Times

Once again, it’s hard to see a strong link between party rule and killings. The four deadliest states are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and New Mexico. Two have Democratic governors, and two have Republican governors. Some red states look bad, and some look good. The same is true for blue states.

Deeper causes

So what drives higher crime rates? The state map offers a few answers. Rural areas tend to have lower crime and murder rates. (But when murders surged and then fell across the U.S. starting in 2020, rural places experienced a similar pattern.) Poverty and race play a role, both of which are historically linked to violence in cities.

Access to guns is another major factor, particularly for murders. Guns make any conflict more likely to escalate into deadly violence, and they can embolden criminals. On this issue, there is a partisan divide — Democrats are more comfortable regulating firearms — and that could help explain higher levels of violence in Republican states, especially in the South. It can also explain violence in cities, which get a lot of guns from Southern states with laxer laws.
 

There are many more variables. It is a point that this newsletter has madebefore: Crime is a complicated issue, touching on personal disputes, the economy, social services and, really, almost every other aspect of society. Only a few factors are significant enough to make a big difference by themselves — and partisanship is not one of them.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/briefing/crime.html

Source is the CDC, those wonderful people who gave us the China plague.

Treason Times?  Seriously?

[Rebound]

2 hours ago, Nationalist said:

NOBODY...but Babbit...was "killed" at or as a result of the Jan. 6th riot.

Libbie summer of love...several shot...hundreds of millions...if not more...in damages...government buildings attacked and burned down...thousands of businesses ruined.

Your lies are so bloody ridiculous that I'm actually embarrassed for you.

I’m not lying and I have never defended the people who rioted or looted during BLM protests. Unlike you, I admit there was rioting, while you refuse to admit the truth that the Jan 6 event was an insurrection. Those rioters halted the certification of the electoral votes for Joe Biden. 
 

Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election," Trump tweeted, even after he had heard from many of his top political and legal advisers that he had, in fact, lost. 

"Big protest in D.C. on January 6th!

”Be there, will be wild!"

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Rebound

[NYLefty]

In my travels thru most southern and basically red state cities and even rural locales I've witnessed poverty, crime, drug use which makes NY city and rural towns in NY look like Mayberry 

[impartialobserver]

Criminals do not care about politics... therefore tying the two together is for fools. Crime is correlated with poverty and perceived economic opportunities. The reason that you find crime in SF but not Norris, MT is not a matter of politics... 

[Nationalist]

1 hour ago, Rebound said:

I’m not lying and I have never defended the people who rioted or looted during BLM protests. Unlike you, I admit there was rioting, while you refuse to admit the truth that the Jan 6 event was an insurrection. Those rioters halted the certification of the electoral votes for Joe Biden. 
 

Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election," Trump tweeted, even after he had heard from many of his top political and legal advisers that he had, in fact, lost. 

"Big protest in D.C. on January 6th!

”Be there, will be wild!"

 

It was not an insurrection. That alone is a bald faced lie.

[Hodad]

2 hours ago, Nationalist said:

It was not an insurrection. That alone is a bald faced lie.

Tell that to the people involved in the planning (now felons), who literally, in black and white, called it an insurrection. Or the people on site who happily volunteered that they were there for revolution or a "1776 moment."

 

[CdnFox]

17 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Tell that to the people involved in the planning (now felons), who literally, in black and white, called it an insurrection. Or the people on site who happily volunteered that they were there for revolution or a "1776 moment."

 

And brought no guns.  In the most heavily armed country in the world.

Yeah - you might want to look up hyperbole

[Legato]

53 minutes ago, Hodad said:

Tell that to the people involved in the planning (now felons), who literally, in black and white, called it an insurrection. Or the people on site who happily volunteered that they were there for revolution or a "1776 moment."

 

Only an insurrection if done by Republican's, when done by Democrats it's called a mostly peaceful protest.

[Hodad]

9 minutes ago, Legato said:

Only an insurrection if done by Republican's, when done by Democrats it's called a mostly peaceful protest.

As far as I'm aware only one party in recent memory has tried to overthrow the government.

Hopefully it doesn't become a trend, but Republicans show no remorse whatsoever, so who can tell.

[Rebound]

4 hours ago, Nationalist said:

It was not an insurrection. That alone is a bald faced lie.

According to an act of Congress… it was an insurrection. An act which passed unanimously by the US Senate. Legally… it was an insurrection. 

[NYLefty]

In my observations southern/red states poverty and crime, drugs is spread from the inner cities right into the countryside. However most Northern states cities have a small region that's impoverished but the majority of these cities are usually very nice, low crime with high end real estate. And once out in the country side your surrounded by beauty and nature with low crime family neighborhoods and suburbs. And I'm seeing a remarkable improvement of most cities bad areas in the state with things like gentrification, and to everyone's surprise Latinos converting once terrible neighborhoods to nice areas.

[Legato]

14 hours ago, Hodad said:

As far as I'm aware only one party in recent memory has tried to overthrow the government.

Hopefully it doesn't become a trend, but Republicans show no remorse whatsoever, so who can tell.

Try tinkering with your awareness.

[Hodad]

18 hours ago, Legato said:

Try tinkering with your awareness.

I'm sure you can provide a link to support your insinuation?

Or are you just doing some very lame trolling?