From Criminal Justice to Social Justice
(The Intended Consequences of the Evolving Marxist Revolution in the United States of America)
Between 1994 and 2008, violent crime in New York City declined by an astounding 62%. But a reverse turnaround is now underway, due to Mayor Bill DeBlasio, the Democratic Party, and Black Lives Matter. Through 2020, murders were up 41% from 2019, shooting victims 103%, and shooting incidents 97%.
New York City is not alone. Across the nation, crime is surging- Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Portland, Baltimore-all reported increases in violent crime in 2020.
According to the Washington Post, “The United States has experienced the largest single one-year increase in homicides since the country started keeping such records in the 20th century, according to crime data and criminologists.” In Oakland, California, homicides have risen a startling 400% from 2020- and yet the city is preparing to move ahead with over 100 recommendations from its Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, assembled following the death of George Floyd, which will include defunding the police department, and shifting more money to social services for mental health crises. In Los Angeles, California, the number of homicides in 2020 was 349- a ten year high. Already in 2021, there has been a 34% increase in the homicide rate in L.A.
While the FBI does not offer opinions to explain the major increases in crime across America, there is no shortage of experts, journalists, and politicians who will. In “America Saw a Historic Rise in Murders in 2020. Why?” Author Jesse Singal of New York Magazineʼs Intelligener attributes the rising violence to “a worst-case confluence of forces — the stresses of a pandemic and the intensity of the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd — that pushed already frayed neighborhoods into spirals of violence.” Singal is forced to grapple with the fact that while violent crime was up dramatically, researchers canʼt explain why property crimes dropped at the same time. He counts on the explanation of an “expert” to do it for him.
“Seeing the sort of divergence in patterns between gun violence specifically going up and lots of other crimes, including property crimes and others, going down is very unusual,” said Roseanna Ander, founding executive director of the U of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab. Given that most of the year took place under lockdowns of varying severity, one might have thought the murder rate would have fallen alongside everything else, said (Max) Kapustin, (an assistant professor at the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University, as well as an affiliate at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and Education Lab). “You might think, ‘Oh, maybe there will be fewer opportunities for gun violence to happen.ʼ” Instead, the opposite happened. The pandemic “disrupted a whole host of institutions that act as a first line against gun violence,” he said.
Kapustin is quoted again to offer an explanation of police behavior as it effects violent crime. His so-called expertise shreds the definition of credibility. “The impact of the coronavirus on police behavior alone might explain part of the rise in violent crime. In many cities around the country, the pandemic has both thinned the ranks of on-duty police and forced those who remain healthy to take an approach that entails fewer of the friendly (or at least neutral) interactions with citizens that mark good community policing. “Even the ones who arenʼt out sick, theyʼre keeping their distance and pulling back in a variety of ways,” said Kapustin.
Unfortunately for these academic think tank experts and clueless journalist Singal, their explanations donʼt hold water and are merely the excuses that should have been expected from radical progressives who have been pursuing policies since the days of the presidency of Barack Obama to “fundamentally transform America.” That transformation was based on the tenets of revolutionary Marxist thought that extended from the Days of Rage in America promulgated by the Weather Underground terror organization and the Black Panther Party until the 1980ʼs, when citizens finally decided to take their cities and towns back from criminals-regardless of race.
After decades of decreasing crime and highly effective policing in America, the onset of sanctuary cities, elections in some locations of openly communist city council members and leftist district attorneys, and the spewing of systemic racism, white privilege and hateful rhetoric about America and the rule of law, the Democratic Party and Black Lives Matter have succeeded in turning America full sail, back into broken cities and tattered dreams.
Todayʼs surging crime figures reflect all of these realities. The current explosion in crime on Americaʼs streets was predicted years earlier. The answer-the implementation of Marxist policies and destruction of the rule of law. In his article, “The Cost of Bad Intentions, Progressive Policies Threaten a New Era of Urban Dysfunction,” (CJ Magazine, September 2019), Steven Malanga, reminds readers of the truth about the administration of justice and rising crime rates. His 2019 argument was prescient.
“Urban America began falling apart in the 1960s, with skyrocketing crime and worsening disorder. Vagrants and drug dealers colonized streets, parks, and other public spaces. Many once-vibrant city neighborhoods collapsed. The crisis had many causes, including the flight of industrial jobs from northern and midwestern cities. But profound changes in attitudes and government social policy played major roles, too. Crucial adjustments to welfare programs, spurred by liberal policymakersʼ belief that the poor were victims of an unjust system, discouraged work and undermined families. The 1960s cultural revolution, which endorsed experimentation with drugs, brought more addiction—and more drug-fueled
crime. And as the crisis intensified, policymakers lowered penalties for many crimes, seeing lawbreakers, too, as victims of society, so crime got worse still. Though such policies, championed nationally by President Lyndon B. Johnson and locally by mayors like New Yorkʼs John Lindsay, were well-intentioned, they helped produce an urban netherworld.
As City Journal readers know well, cities woke up from this nightmare in the 1990s, with smarter and more aggressive policing, tougher criminal sanctions, greater focus on quality-of-life concerns, welfare reform, and other policy changes. Crime plummeted in many cities, and many city economies surged. Some cities, including New York, became models of urban flourishing.
Yet, tragically—and bewilderingly, given such improvements—a new generation of progressive urban politicians seem intent on returning to some of the policies that cost cities so dearly decades ago. Theyʼre pulling back on enforcement of quality-of-life infractions, ceding public space again to the homeless and drug users, undermining public school discipline, and releasing violent criminals back into communities or refusing to prosecute them in the first place. And lo and behold, crime is starting to rise, and the streets of otherwise successful cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and even parts of New York are filling up with human excrement, drug paraphernalia, and illness-wracked homeless encampments.
Residents are growing fearful.
Although Malanga wrote the above words in 2019-intended as a wake up call to take back Americaʼs streets, the 2020 election of President Joe Biden has unleashed in all of its fury the Marxist assault on Americaʼs rule of law. Police are systemically racist, Black Power groups are better able to “patrol” the streets of Americaʼs cities, and criminal justice should be replaced.by social justice.
Indeed, former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (supported by former President Barack Obama) called for “race-based” laws. In the meantime, President Biden has opened Americaʼs borders and illegal aliens are once again flooding into the country from places like Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. Drug running and human trafficking are on the increase-as is murder, armed robbery and felonious assaults.
The proof is everywhere-including from the FBI. A look at the FBIʼs current Ten Most Wanted List provides a timely snapshot of Americaʼs return to the heady days of rising crime rates and senseless acts of violence in cities and towns across the country, not seen since the 1970ʼs and 1980ʼs. Five of the ten fugitives are foreign nationals. A Mexican National is wanted for interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. Another Mexican National is wanted for the kidnapping and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, as well as racketeering and conspiracy. There is a $20 million dollar reward offered for his capture. An Indian National is wanted for Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution in the murder of his
wife. A Honduran National is wanted in connection with the kidnap, rape and murder of a five year old girl in Pennsylvania. An Egyptian National has just been removed from the list due to his capture.
Malanga was right. If residents in 2019 were “growing fearful,” todayʼs city dwellers-and the rest of us, should be in panic mode. Corrupt and treasonous politicians are quickly replacing the rule of law with no law, and defunding police.
The disastrous consequences of the evolving Marxist revolution will soon come to a city near you.