Violent hate crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion, or sexual orientation are frequently making headlines these days. However, these attacks are only a small portion of the criminal activities afflicting our cities. Unfortunately, neither media pundits nor public officials are ringing any alarm bells over crimes that are motivated by the opposite of hate: apathy. In several urban areas, there has been a rise in audacious, unprovoked, and apparently random violent attacks that target strangers. This problem has been exacerbated since anti-police activists have gained the upper hand in public discourse.
In New York City, a series of random attacks and robberies have brought a sense of unease to the city’s residents. In one particularly brutal incident, a 60-year-old woman was beaten with her own cane by an unknown assailant. In another, a commuter was pushed into a subway track and left for dead. These incidents, along with several others, have left many New Yorkers feeling unsafe.
According to a recent poll, 41% of New Yorkers believe that crime in the city is worse than ever. While it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of this violence, city statistics suggest that a disproportionate amount of it is committed against strangers. In 2022 alone, over 170,000 felonies were reported in the city, the highest level on record. Crimes that are more likely to involve random targeting, such as robberies, car theft, burglary, and felony assault, all increased sharply.
So what is behind this wave of violence? Many experts believe that it is related to larger societal issues. For one thing, our nation has become spiritually unmoored, with belief in God at an all-time low. This, coupled with depression or purposelessness, has led some people to turn to crime or drugs as a form of escapism. Additionally, the breakdown of the traditional family unit has had a profound impact on our communities. Children raised by biological, married parents do better by almost every measure, yet one-third of all American children currently live with a single parent. Of those children, 81% are living without a father in the home. Some communities suffer from broken families at even higher rates.
It is clear that having two parents is one of the best ways to prevent juvenile crime. Until we can address these larger societal issues, it is unlikely that we will see a significant decrease in violent crime in our cities.
In addition, the prevalent societal perception that regards almost all police officers as criminals has created an environment that is conducive to indifference towards crimes. The morale among police officers has plummeted to record lows in 2021, as reported by Axios, and a significant number of departments are still unable to fill vacancies, as noted by NBC News. The situation is so dire in certain areas of the United States that entire police departments are forced to shut down, as reported by the Daily Mail. Instead of being praised for selecting a noble profession that necessitates bravery and fortitude, police officers are scorned by a significant portion of the population who have been fed the notion by liberals, celebrities, and the mainstream media that cops are nothing but racist pigs, as reported by Time. Given the current state of affairs, why would a young individual opt for a job that has become not only thankless but also perilous?
Police intervention seems unlikely, and public action even less so. In major cities, legal gun carriers are few and far between, and any action taken by a passerby could be interpreted as racist, even if it’s recorded. This was highlighted in the death of Jordan Neely on a Manhattan subway earlier this year, where instead of helping the victim, many witnesses simply stood there and watched, recording it on their phones.
The media is more interested in talking about hate crimes, with federal authorities, including the president, claiming that “white supremacy is the biggest threat facing our nation.” However, such statements are not supported by statistics, and public perception is key. A 2021 poll asked the public to estimate the number of unarmed Black men killed by police, and a majority of self-described “very liberal” respondents estimated the number at 1,000 or more, with over 7% believing it to be 10,000 or more. The actual number was 27. In contrast, the FBI reported over 7,000 hate crimes in 2021, compared to 1.3 million overall violent crimes nationwide.
Unfortunately, Democrats have allowed an important, but relatively infrequent, concern to overshadow the overwhelming increase in other violent crimes that have emerged over the past three years. 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, which left her with a broken leg, cuts, and bruises. In a social media post, she urged people to remember her “when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody to roam our streets.”
Solutions to these society-wide problems do exist, though some politicians may be reluctant to acknowledge them. Proper funding and respect for the nation’s police would go a long way towards reducing our current issues. We have seen the effects of the left’s partially-successful effort to criminalize the police. Two major social solutions that are less likely include the rebuilding of the traditional family, gutted from Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs onward, and the rejection of the nihilism and moral relativism that gave rise to our current environment.
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. Perhaps we, as a nation, will not solve our problems with crime and societal breakdown. However, we should 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. Kristin Tate, a writer based in Texas focused on government spending, federal regulation, and digital currencies, highlights that we need true leadership to tackle our problems.
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