America's Talking - DC Council’s Push for Liberal Crime Bill Backfires

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. We are recording this on Friday, March 24th. In recent months, Casey governance of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. has been a bit of an issue with Democrats who run the city, Washington, D.C., wanting to change certain criminal justice laws, making them looser Congress didn't like that with crime up in D.C. And now Congress is sort of stepping in and taking more control over the governance of D.C. Tell us a little about what's going on. Yeah, I mean, for those who on First Blush are saying, why should I care about the crime rate in

Starting point is 00:00:45 Washington, D.C., that's a thousand miles away from me. I mean, it's a good question. But why the story is interesting is because D.C. has become really the epicenter in recent weeks of a national debate over criminal justice reform and criminal policies that really began and heightened in the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray. Right. So of course, after, you know, Freddie Gray was killed, it kicked off this whole wave of defund the police, which is a highly controversial movement. Some of that movement was paired back to, no, just heavily reform the police, divert funding away from law enforcement and put it towards more kind of like social good. And, and, and, big part of this movement, and this is the movement that can be complicated, so there's not just

Starting point is 00:01:29 a monolithic, you know, theories and everything. But a big part of this was cutting back the criminal penalties for a lot of offenses, right? Making it where if you broke the law, you weren't spending as much time in jail or as much time in prison. And of course, that was really controversial. But what we saw after, you know, the death of Freddie Gray is crime skyrocketed in cities around the country. We saw much higher homicide rates in particular, violent crime. They're really about homicides in particular that were really just much higher. And there's reasons for that.

Starting point is 00:02:04 A lot of experts I've talked to and written about at the cinder square.com said that a lot of police officers felt that it was too dangerous to go in certain neighborhoods because police weren't welcome. And a lot of officers don't feel like they're going to get the support of their local leaders if they get into some kind of altercation or maybe where maybe there's a gray area where maybe they made a mistake or maybe they made a mistake. or maybe they didn't. They're not going to get the benefit of the doubt. And so they're disincentivized from going into more dangerous neighborhoods. They'll just stay in the safer neighborhoods where it's more petty theft and less, you know, homicides. But what that does is it abandons those people in those more dangerous neighborhoods to really be at the mercy of the criminals there. And of course, those criminals have no mercy. And so we've seen this rising crime. And D.C. is not exempt from that. And even just this crime is up 22% this year, total crime compared to last year. Homicides are at 14%.

Starting point is 00:02:52 That's even though, you know, we've already seen previous years homicides rise. So this is pretty significant. Sex abuse is up 111%. Motor vehicle theft is up 104%. Arson is at 400%. I know I'm going on here. But I'm just setting the stage for what happened, which is D.C. City Council members proposed a bill to cut the penalties for crimes just like these, even amid a crime spike. And it's caused a lot of controversy. Yeah, even President Biden himself pushed back against the reform, and reform is another, it reforms one of those loaded words. One person's reform is another person's problem. But even President Biden pushed back against what the Washington, D.C. City Council wanted to do. And it's not exclusive to Washington, D.C. too. These are debates, fights, whatever you want to call it, that are happening across the country. In my home state of Illinois, the legislature passed what's called the Safe T Act,

Starting point is 00:03:45 S-A-F-E-T Act that included cashless bail provisions that were supposed to go into effect January 1st of this year, but several lawsuits in the state challenging the constitutionality of that, particularly when it comes to the separation of powers, essentially the Illinois legislature, wanted to make almost all crimes that no cash bail needed to get out of jail pre-adjudication of it, meaning before you go to trial, someone who's charged, with murder or domestic abuse or rape or whatever would not have to post bail to get out before they go to trial. That is now on hold because of the legal fight. And these kinds of legal battles are going on around the country. So what happens, what is happening in D.C. is not

Starting point is 00:04:31 exclusive just to Washington, D.C. The state of Washington is doing something similar. So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But there are legitimate concerns by law enforcement groups, by prosecutors, just by everyday citizens, that if you allow people who commit these violent acts out of prison early, that your city's going to get more, your city or your state, in the case of Illinois and Washington, are going to get more dangerous. It's interesting because what we see in cities like you described in other cities, is that the local leaders, a lot of big cities, are actually a lot more liberal than your average Democrat.

Starting point is 00:05:09 And they are more liberal because the cities are hyper-liberal. So, like, the city will be really liberal. the rural area will be really conservative. And so then the senator for that state may be somewhere in the middle, right, to kind of bring in the suburban voters and the rural voters or to bring in the suburbs often kind of decide and temper the conservative rural area or the liberal cities. But a lot of those moderates are in the suburbs or not in the city proper. And so what happens is you get hyper liberal city governments that are more liberal than even a lot of Democratic senators. And that's why I believe it was 33, Senate Democrats voted against this DC crime before. I mean, to get this kind of level of bipartisan opposition to anything in this day and age where we are in the country is really telling. And as you mentioned, Joe Biden. So I think this is a really tough issue for Democrats because they have these really liberal city leaders that are more liberal than even often your average Democratic voter that are pushing this criminal, this criminal justice issue alongside a lot of high,

Starting point is 00:06:14 liberal activists. And it's, I think it's hurting the party. And the Democratic Party is not sure what to do with it. Biden is trying, you know, I mean, he does often, you know, play the middle on some of these issues. So, you know, this is the kind of issue, though, that Trump will harp on, you know, we saw him talk a lot about crime in the past. And so if this isn't cleaned up, I think it could have big implications for the next election and the next presidential election because despite Democrats sort of walking back some of the defund the police rhetoric, they're still pushing a lot of policies. like this. And some of these far left city leaders are going to get some of the moderate Democrats in trouble in the next election, I think. Right. And I think it's important to say that those who are pushing for these changes in the criminal justice system, looking for no cash bail, looking for reduced sentences for some of these violent crimes, their argument is that it's

Starting point is 00:07:06 an inequitable system because it's generally, generally speaking, not completely across the board, of course, that it impacts the black and brown communities more because they're generally less affluent, don't have the money, for example, might not have the money to post significant cash bail. So it's the black and brown communities, individuals who commit these crimes, who are stuck behind bars while they're awaiting trial or whatever. So there is a legitimate argument there. But when it comes down to it, the bottom line is how is it going to impact public safety overall. And we've seen since the pandemic, we've seen since some of these high profile cases that crime is on the rise. And that's certainly got to be a consideration when you're

Starting point is 00:07:53 when you're talking about these issues. Absolutely is. And I think, you know, I've wrote about a story at the beginning of this year that crime was a top concern for American voters. So this is not bottom of the list when the things that they're concerned about. It's really up there. It may not be top of the list for some of our elected leaders. we're more focused on other issues, but for Americans, it is top of the list. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McKalib. Thank you for listening. Freedom and liberty are important to all of us.

Starting point is 00:08:27 If you're looking for civil, intellectual conversations with those shaping the future of freedom, try the Future of Freedom podcast with me, Scott Bertram. We speak with leaders across the country in the greater conservative and libertarian movements. In-depth conversations about where the... next intellectual battles will happen across the country. It's the Future of Freedom Podcast. Find it at America's Talking.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

America's Talking - DC Council’s Push for Liberal Crime Bill Backfires

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