Crime Trend Nobody Wants to Talk About

 Hate crimes — violent actions motivated by prejudice on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation — are all over the news, all the time. But these reprehensible assaults tell only a part of the crime story plaguing our nation’s cities. Media pundits and public officials fail to ring alarm bells over crimes fueled by the opposite of hate: those fueled by apathy.

Brazen, unprovoked and seemingly random violent attacks targeting strangers have been on the rise in many urban areas. The problem has gotten worse since anti-police activists gained the upper hand in public discourse.

Earlier this month in New York City, an assailant struck a 60-year-old woman in the subway 50 times with her cane during a shocking caught-on-video beating. The woman did not know her attacker. Last year, a commuter was pushed into a subway track and left for dead. In other random attacks, an elderly lady was punched in the head, a woman was struck with a brick and a man was attacked by strangers while coming home from work, all in formerly-safe neighborhoods.

A recent poll found 41% of New Yorkers think crime in the city is worse than ever. Finding the cause of such violence is not always easy, but city statistics appear to bear out the idea that a disproportionate amount of violence in New York is committed against strangers. In 2022, more than 170,000 felonies were reported in the city, the highest level on record. In particular, crimes that are more likely to involve random targeting, such as robberies, car theft, burglary and felony assault, all increased sharply. Auto theft alone was up almost a third.

What is going on? 

A significant portion of this wave of random attacks and robberies is likely related to society’s direction. Our nation has become spiritually unmoored in several ways, with belief in God at an all-time low and escapism through crime or drugs distracting people from depression or purposelessness. The traditional family unit has broken down. Children raised by biological, married parents do better by almost every measure — and yet roughly 24 million, or one-third of all American children, currently live with a single parent. Of those children, 81 percent are living without a father in the home. Some communities suffer from broken families at even higher rates. For example,  57% of Black children are living absent their fathers. We’ve known for years that having two parents is one of the best ways to prevent juvenile crime.

Along with these factors, rapidly changing society has made us more cynical. Social media (especially TikTok) have shortened attention spans and dulled serotonin receptors to the point that people often crave something real and instantaneous, whether it is positive or negative.

At the policy level, lawless behavior has become increasingly tolerated in many cities since the riots in 2020 following George Floyd’s death. These jurisdictions are experiencing a vicious cycle in which criminals victimize innocent people, get arrested, and then are released back onto the streets to victimize more people. Those looking to do harm realize they will not get in serious trouble for their actions. In New York City, District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has become a revolving door for career criminals who shamelessly brutalize people in daylight. Some are arrested more than 100 times, just to be released to commit more crimes. In August, New York City Mayor Eric Adams revealed that 10 criminals alone committed nearly 500 crimes in the city. Six of them were free on the streets at the time of his announcement. 

Furthermore, our apparent societal decision to treat nearly all police as criminals has provided fertile ground for crimes of apathy. Morale among officers hit record lows in 2021, and many departments still cannot fill vacancies. The situation is so bad in some parts of the country that entire police departments are simply shutting down altogether. Instead of being commended for choosing an honorable career that requires courage and strength, police officers are sneered at by much of the country who were told by liberals, celebrities and mainstream media that cops are racist pigs. Why would a young person today choose what has become such a thankless and dangerous job?

Not only is police intervention less likely, but public action is even less so. Major cities often have fewer legal gun carriers — that is, if their right to carry isn’t suspended — while any action by a passerby could be interpreted as racist, even if it’s recorded. Just think of the response to the death of Jordan Neely on a Manhattan subway earlier this year. So, instead of helping a person who is being brutalized, many witnesses simply stand there and watch, with their phones recording what happens.

The only crimes most media seem interested in talking about are hate crimes. We’re told by federal authorities, including the president, that “white supremacy is the biggest threat facing our nation.” Putting aside that such statements are not supported by statistics, public perception is key. A 2021 poll asked the public to estimate the number of unarmed Black men killed by police. A majority of self-described “very liberal” respondents estimated the number at 1,000 or more. More than 7% thought it was 10,000 or more. The actual number was 27. The FBI reported more than 7,000 hate crimes in 2021, compared to 1.3 million overall violent crimes nationwide.           

Democrats have allowed an important, but relatively infrequent, concern to overshadow the overwhelming increase in other violent crime that has emerged over the past three years.

Sadly, it often takes anti-police leftists being brutalized themselves to realize how destructive their ideology has been on communities. Recently, the second vice chair of Minnesota’s Democratic Party was physically harmed in a carjacking in Minneapolis. The event left her with a broken leg, cuts and bruises. The former backer of defunding the police wrote a social media post in which she said to remember her “when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets.”

There are solutions to these society-wide problems, as much as some politicians may not want to acknowledge them. From the government side, proper funding and respect for the nation’s police would go a long way toward reducing our current issues. We’ve seen the effects of the left’s partially-successful effort to criminalize the police. There would be two major social solutions that are less likely. First is the rebuilding of the traditional family, gutted from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs onward. Second would be the rejection of the nihilism and moral relativism that gave us our current environment. 

Perhaps we as a nation will not solve our problems with crime and societal breakdown. However, remember that even in the darkest days of New York City’s past, there was a solution to growing street crime and disorder in the early 1990s. It can be done. It is possible to at least turn the tide of the battle, but it requires something that major cities and the nation are sorely lacking: true leadership.

Kristin Tate (@KristinBTate) is a writer based in Texas focused on government spending, federal regulation and digital currencies. She is an on-air contributor for Sky News and routinely provides political commentary for U.S.-based cable networks. Her latest book is, “The Liberal Invasion of Red State America.”

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