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 the Reds News Radio seven hundred WLW attention golfers join