Combatting Crime
As he did in his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump made fighting crime, particularly crime by illegal immigrants, the focus of his 2024 presidential campaign. However, it’s not at all clear that Trump, a man whose wholly-owned company has been convicted of tax fraud, who has personally been accused of sexual assault by numerous women and who has been indicted no less than four times, actually cares about fighting crime. Indeed, his current crusade against crime seems to be almost completely motivated by a desire to arouse the ire of his political supporters and to create a legal basis for his campaign of vengeance against his perceived enemies.
Being tough on crime has been one of the high priorities of Republican politicians dating back for over 150 years and that undoubtedly was one of the factors that led Trump to focus on crime when he entered politics nine years ago. To be sure, crime rates have long been a problem in the U.S. A comparative study compiled in 1988 of crime rates in the U.S. with those reported in European countries between 1980 and 1984 revealed that the U.S. homicide rate was roughly five times that of European democracies. Similarly, the U.S. rate for rape was approximately seven times higher than the average for European countries and robbery rates in the U.S. were approximately four times those in European countries.
It was therefore only natural that crime would again be one of the issues that Trump would be focusing on in his effort to be reelected in 2024. One of the problems with that strategy was that crime rates in the U.S. had been steadily declining for the preceding 34 years. Specifically, violent crimes are currently being committed at a rate that is roughly 52% of their rate in 1990, while property crimes are currently being committed at a rate that is less than 38% of the rate they were being committed in 1990. While Trump has never been reticent about making up his own facts, he obviously felt that a narrative of out-of-control criminal activities involving immigrants would be more convincing to his supporters.
To that end, he continually attacked immigrants labeling them as “criminals”, “illegal monsters”, “killers” and “gang members.” He even accused them of “poisoning the blood of our country” (a phrase he borrowed from Adolf Hitler). At best, his allegations were based upon half-truths (if not wholly fabricated) and were continually repeated in an effort to plant fear and loathing in the minds of his supporters. He went on to blame immigrants (both documented and undocumented) for the high level of crime which he asserted had infested our major metropolitan areas.
To fully appreciate how fighting crime should be best handled, it’s important to understand why our crime rates are far greater than those experienced in European democracies. That differential is largely traceable to character of the American people who tend to be rugged individualists who are willing to explore new environments and brave dangers to create better lives for themselves and their families. The inclination of many Americans to fend for themselves has led to the creation of new products and new businesses which have catapulted the United States into becoming the planet’s most powerful nation. In many cases, it has also led many Americans to play by their own rules and distain the rules established by others.
Another factor underlying our nation’s high crime rate has been a widespread distrust in our state, local and federal governments to protect the interests of their citizens. This feeling was popularized by Ronald Reagan when he proclaimed that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” The concern that our governments lack the will (or even the ability) to help their citizens has generally strengthened the notion harbored by most Americans that they must fend for themselves. To a large degree that also explains why Americans own over 393 million firearms. These cultural characteristics set Americans apart from the citizens of other nations. In addition to helping explain why our crime rates are much higher, they also cast doubt on whether Trump’s plans to curb crime will be successful even assuming that is what he hopes to achieve..
While our criminal laws encompass a large variety of actions, those crimes which are given the greatest attention are placed in two broad categories: “violent crimes” and “property crimes.” The former group includes murder, assault, sexual assault, armed robbery and rape, while the latter group includes the theft or destruction of property without threats or injuries to their owners (principally, burglary, arson, larceny, motor vehicle theft, pick-pocketing and shoplifting). The factors which may have accounted for the decline in violent and property crimes since 1990 are detailed in an article in Wikipedia. They include
The decrease in lead exposure among children due to the elimination of lead from gasoline and paints;
The increase in the number of police officers employed by various police forces;
The expenditure of over $30 billion to improve state and local law enforcement, prisons and crime prevention programs;
The growth in the nation’s prison population;
The availability of legal abortions which reduced the number of children born to mothers not able to provide proper care for their children;
Demographic changes increasing the percentage of our nation’s older citizens who are less likely to commit crimes;
The introduction of data-driven policing practices; and
The quality and extent of use of security technology.
Not only have crime rates NOT been increasing as Trump has asserted, but crime rates among immigrants (and particularly undocumented immigrants) are distinctly lower than they are for U.S. born citizens. This is documented in a recent study by the National Institute of Justice of arrests in the State of Texas which concluded that the crime rate of U.S. born citizens was 1,000 per 100,000 residents as compared to 800 per 100,000 residents for documented immigrants and 400 per 100,000 residents for undocumented immigrants. This essentially disproves Trump’s attribution of our high crime rates to immigrants. It also casts doubt as to whether reducing crime is really the motivation underlying the measures he has proposed.
The reduction in U.S. crime rates in recent years has not gone unnoticed. Criminologists have studied this reduction in crime rates and concluded that “the most effective crime-fighting tools [are] not explicitly about fighting crime.” Much of the nation’s success in reducing crime is the result of improving the health of the nation’s citizens and creating stronger communities with closer relationships between law enforcement agencies and citizens. Mass incarcerations and better crime prevention tools do help, but to a much lesser extent.
Among the 20 recommendations arising out of recent studies are the following:
Teach people how to avoid being a victim of crimes;
Improve geographic areas that have a high rate of crimes;
Improve social services for individuals with profiles indicating a high propensity for committing crimes;
Improving job markets and job training;
Make jails and prisons less criminogenic and prepare inmates for their return to life after they have served their prison terms;
Use technology to prevent the commission of crimes;
Impose greater restrictions on gun ownership;
Address the causes and consequences of poverty; and
Help those with substance abuse disorders.
Ignoring the lessons of the past, however, Trump has announced a long list of steps that he intends to pursue to reduce crime rates. Those measures include:
Employing widespread use of stop & frisk programs,
Employing more aggressive police tactics including expanded uses of force,
Providing police departments with military weaponry,
Utilizing the national guards to enforce criminal laws,
Expanding the scope of crimes punishable by incarcerations and imposing longer sentences,
Expanding the applications of capital punishment, and
Implementing mass deportations.
Most of these measures share a common theme; they focus on identifying criminals and making the consequences of their criminal conduct so draconian that no one would even consider violating the law. As such, they mirror the police tactics utilized by authoritarian governments. They are also reminiscent of the policies that Trump instituted to discourage asylum-seekers from illegally entering the U.S. and his exhortations to police to shoot individuals protesting governmental action.
Particularly troubling is the promise Trump made at a rally held on September 29th in Erie, Pennsylvania to implement “a real rough, nasty. . . day of violence.” This pledge was made in the context of his recitation of shoplifting incidents in drugstores which he asserted continue because sporadic prosecution does not deter crime. He argued that if law enforcement officials were particularly brutal in arresting shoplifters, that problem would be immediately be halted. His use of the phrase “a day of violence” appears to be taken from the title of a 2010 movie in which the principal character embarked on a particularly horrifying one-day killing spree. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Trump has urged others to use intimidation and violence to bring a halt to a perceived problem and undoubtedly won’t be the last.
Indeed, bullying and intimidation seem to be Trump’s preferred means of solving problems. Most notably, he called for the separation of immigrants from their children as a means of deterring asylum-seekers from illegally seeking entry into the U.S. and he incited his supporters on January 6th to “fight like hell” in an effort to prevent the confirmation of President Biden’s election. Similarly, he has encouraged his supporters to harass the judges, jurors and witnesses in the criminal proceedings initiated against him. More recently, he threatened to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico if they didn’t stop asylum-seekers from crossing their borders into the U.S.; and he threatened Republican members of Congress with primary challenges if they voted in favor of renewed funding for the federal government. None of these efforts solved any of the problems he faced.
The question is what will be the impact of Trump’s calls to escalate the use of force as a means of deterring crime. History is filled with similar efforts to deter inimical behavior by massive uses of force. For example, in World War II allied forces employed “strategic bombing” to obliterate the German city of Dresden in an effort to stop the war. It didn’t. George W. Bush used a similar tactic to put a quick end to war he was commencing with Iraq. That tactic consisted ofn a massive bombing operation called “Shock and Awe.” That effort only temporarily halted the Iraqis’ resistance as hostilities soon resumed and continued for several years causing the deaths of more than 7,000 U.S. and allied soldiers. Even our initial use of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima did not cause the Japanese to surrender. It took a second bomb dropped on Nagasaki to achieve that goal.
While threats and intimidation may temporarily suppress a problem, they rarely put an end to it. On the contrary, they tend to increase hostility and prolong the problem. For that reason, intimidation should only be used as a temporary measure until a more permanent solution can be implemented. This can be seen from the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a handful of Minneapolis police officers. That act of brutality set off protests in roughly 150 American cities that went on for two years. Unfortunately, Trump seems to be contemplating making acts of police brutality commonplace. This could unleash literally hundreds of civil disobedience protests in response to which Trump has already threatened to halt by deploying national guards troops. This time there will be no Secretary of Defense like Mark Esper or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff like Mark Milley to prevent Trump from escalating a bad situation.
Obviously, this would be a very dangerous step in a nation in which privately-owned guns outnumber its citizens. While Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung Un may be able to get away with harsh tactics, it is not at all clear that those tactics can succeed in a nation whose citizens have long enjoyed a wide range of personal liberties and who possess an unprecedent number of lethal weapons. Nor is it clear that our nation’s police officers and military personnel would be willing to use their weapons against citizens who are simply protesting against autocratic rule.
As noted at the beginning of this article, the sad truth is that Trump doesn’t really seem to care whether crimes are committed or even who commits them. Accordingly, no one should have any illusions as to how he plans to implement the tactics he has threatened to use. They will undoubtedly be carried out in a fashion commonly employed by dictators sometimes characterized as “For my friends everything; for my enemies, the law.”
This is apparent from the manner in which Trump exercised the pardon power during his first term with respect to his close colleagues like Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulis and his recent promises to pardon those who participated in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. By contrast, he has vowed to “weaponize” the Department of Justice against his perceived enemies like those members of Congress who served on the January 6th House Select Committee and those Department of Justice attorneys who prosecuted the two federal criminal proceedings against him. Following his past pattern, you might also expect that he will grant pardons to those who carry out his campaign of vengeance against his enemies.