Brian Tashman: Scaring Voters to the Polls is a Losing Strategy
By Brian Tashman
After a period of rising crime rates across the country during the peak years of the COVID-19 crisis, people in the United States have a reason to celebrate: report after report shows that crime fell dramatically across the country last year and continues to fall this year.
Yet many people believe crime is rising – and politicians like Donald Trump and some media outlets are trying to keep it that way by denying the positive numbers, making fake claims, and ginning up fears.
This should come as no surprise: fear is a time-honored tool to gain and wield power. “If it bleeds it leads” remains an unwritten rule for newsrooms, ensuring that people are constantly aware of individual incidents of crime no matter the bigger picture.
We need to ensure that Americans actually have the facts about crime in this country. However, simply talking about the real statistics won’t be enough to rebut self-interested politicians like Trump and the conservative media’s megaphone. And dismissing people’s real, genuine fears about crime won’t work either.
Voters deserve an honest discussion about the realities of crime and safety today, as well as ways to make their communities safer and better places to live. Elected leaders and candidates need to celebrate the drop in crime and also acknowledge that there is more work to be done.
At a time when bad actors are pushing scare tactics and panic, it is essential that real leaders step up and outline a vision that is serious about safety and endorses successful initiatives proven to prevent crime, respond to crisis, and stop violence—not more of the tired “tough-on-crime” playbook that has failed to deliver safety.
Earlier this year, President Biden commended the recent drop in crime and pledged to do more to make people feel safer and “keep building public trust.” He has specifically named the progress in cities like Detroit, which ended 2023 with double-digit drops in shootings and its lowest homicide rate in 57 years. There, city leaders have put a “new emphasis on preventing crime before it happens and giving those exiting prison assistance in reentering society,” in particular touting their successful investments in community violence intervention.
As some media pundits tell Vice President Harris to run “tough on crime,” she has an opportunity to talk about how she is serious about safety while Trump offers nothing but scare tactics and empty rhetoric. “Nothing is more important than how we choose to keep ourselves, our families and each other safe,” Harris wrote in her memoirs. “Still driving me is the notion that safety is a fundamental civil right.” Harris believes in protecting people’s freedom to be safe; Trump only cares about using the law to protect himself and his friends.
While no one factor causes crime to go up or down, new federal funding from the Biden-Harris administration has led to unprecedented investment in community-based safety measures like community violence intervention and civilian crisis response. We know that a comprehensive approach to community safety that focuses on early interventions to prevent crime—not just responding to crime after it happens—makes a tangible difference. For a country that has long seen law enforcement as the only path to safety, it is a monumental shift backed by decades of evidence.
In Baltimore, Mayor Brandon Scott won a primary against a “tough-on-crime” opponent not just by publicizing his city’s ”historic drop” in crime but also by running ads linking the decline in crime to his office’s investments in housing, education, and recreational centers, as well as introducing a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan.
While Trump took a swipe at Milwaukee last month, calling the GOP convention host a “horrible” city, crime has been falling under Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who has frequently talked about how we can’t “police our way out of” every problem and that we must “address root causes of crime.”
Similar comments have come from leaders of cities like Boston, Buffalo, Portland, Oregon, and Richmond, California, which have also reduced crime even as municipalities across the country experience police staffing shortages.
Research tells us that this messaging works. Polling conducted by Vera Action and GQR found that voters are not looking for more policing or longer prison sentences; they want strategies that keep communities safe in the first place, like mental health and drug use treatment, cracking down on illegal gun sales, better schools, and more affordable housing.
Good leaders know that while the data is a crucial factor, it does not always tell the whole story or capture people’s lived experiences and feelings. These leaders then have a role to play in making the public feel safe by speaking truthfully and investing in a future to protect safety and justice for all.
Brian Tashman is the Deputy Director of Vera Action, a non-profit focused on ending mass incarceration, protecting immigrants’ rights, and restoring dignity to people behind bars.
