Editor: In a Dec. 2 editorial, the Sun Gazette said that left-leaning prosecutors’ release of dangerous criminals who “ought to be behind bars” could result in future Democratic election losses.
That’s true, unless the public swallows the false claim made by soft-on-crime activists that violent crime rose due to the pandemic, rather than soft-on-crime policies.
In reality, the pandemic wasn’t the reason. The murder rate fell in the nations hardest hit by the pandemic, such as Peru, which has the world’s highest death rate from COVID-19: about 6,000 per million people, compared to about 2,400 per million people in the U.S.
Other countries with bigger jumps in mortality during the pandemic – such as Mexico, whose unofficial death rate was almost twice our nation’s – also had falling murder rates.
By contrast, murders skyrocketed in the U.S., where many prosecutors and judges have become softer on crime. The New York Times reported that “murder rose by almost 30 percent in 2020,” and is still “rising.” That was “the biggest rise in murder since the start of national record-keeping in 1960, according to data gathered by the FBI.”
Hans Bader, Arlington