Cities that defunded police departments continue to leave residents in danger to fend for themselves, Eileen Griffin reports.
by Eileen Griffin
Violent crime continues to grow in Democrat-led cities, particularly in communities that supported the defund the police movement.
A recent investigation conducted by the Daily Caller revealed that defunding the police has left police departments short-staffed and unable to respond to calls. Some cities, like Austin, Texas are left with no choice but to fend for themselves and be prepared to protect their own families.
Police departments with fewer staff have reduced capacities to respond to crime. With little deterrent, criminals become more audacious, and communities become more dangerous. The current challenges are just a preview of the crisis around the corner, the report states.
“If the trend continues, departments will no longer have the capacity to respond to crime at all,” wrote Gage Klipper for the Daily Caller. “Liberal elites will always be fine in their gated communities, but in a time of crisis, this could mean life or death for vulnerable communities.”
While police departments are understaffed, crime is continuing to grow in blue cities, as Heartland Daily News previously reported. Leftist policies have resulted in little, if any, punishment for criminals and increased demoralization and demonization of police.
The rising crime has been investigated and reported by Manhattan Institute scholars. Some of them reacted after the latest round of horrific crimes.
“These horrifying incidents highlight the delusion of progressive reformers in dismantling our criminal justice system and not expecting more harm to innocent people,” said Hannah E. Meyers, fellow and director of policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute. “By forcefully reducing the number of dangerous or violently disturbed criminals we arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate in American cities, we leave innocent citizens vulnerable to attack.”
Meyers said crimes are often committed by the same people repeatedly. When antisocial individuals are released, we can expect them to continue to wreak havoc on the community.
“We need to reinvest in police departments and return greater powers to prosecute and incarcerate to our courts,” Meyer said. “Those are the agencies trained and equipped to protect us. Until then, mothers in playgrounds and Brooklynites at bus stops will have the unfair burden of trying to protect themselves, staying always on their guard and always at risk.”
Rafael Mangual, a contributing editor of City Journal and a member of the Council on Criminal Justice, also says serious violent crime is “concentrated within a very small network of offenders.”
“To the extent these offenses continue, it won’t be long before fear of crime begins to occupy a more prominent place in the minds of increasingly broader swaths of the public, which will only exacerbate the already-palpable tension between many Americans and the criminal justice reform activists that currently enjoy outsized influence in policy-making circles and other elite institutions,” Mangual said.
“With crime out of control, American cities are eroding,” Klipper writes. “This was no accident—it was a choice made by progressive politicians who want to abandon law and order in pursuit of a utopian dream. Yet the dream of wealthy elites has become a real-life nightmare for millions of average Americans.”
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