With police under political attack, mayhem surged in U.S. cities. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes:
Sometimes the result of bad public policies takes years to play out. But that wasn’t the case with last year’s political assault on police in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The predictable result of less policing was more violent crime in 2020, as Federal Bureau of Investigation data has now confirmed.
Homicides in the U.S. rose by nearly 30% in 2020, the biggest single-year spike since the feds began collecting data 60 years ago, according to crime statistics from nearly 16,000 law enforcement agencies. The body count reached 21,570 people, or 4,901 more murder victims in 2020 than in 2019. Aggravated assault offenses increased by more than 12%, and violent crime overall rose by 5.6% compared to 2019.
No one factor explains this criminal surge. But it’s no coincidence that the bloodshed increased as cities slashed police budgets, progressive prosecutors demanded leniency and eliminated bail for criminals, and jails and prisons released thousands of lawbreakers amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
[ The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, "The 2020 Murder Spike," Law & Liberty, September 28]
