Crime & Law
Speakers at RNC Claim Rising Crime Rates, While Data and Research Tell Different Stories
Chicago police officers responded to a fatal shooting in the 3100 block of West Carmen Avenue on May 27, 2024. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)
Public safety was the focus of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Tuesday, where the theme was “Make America Safe Once Again.”
Speakers maintained a “tough on crime” message throughout the day with violence in cities, drug abuse and immigration all focal points.
The characters in these narratives were progressive prosecutors and those seeking to defund the police.
WTTW News examined some of the claims made during the second day of the RNC, looked at criminal justice research and spoke to an expert about how research supports — or doesn’t — the campaign rhetoric.
‘Turned Our Great Country and Cities Into War Zones’
When U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Illinois) spoke outside an Illinois delegate event, she was one of many RNC participants connecting the influx of migrants to the U.S. to increased crime, including drug trafficking. It was a constant refrain Tuesday.
The claim has been widely discredited. Research broadly finds immigrants are incarcerated at lower rates than people born in the U.S. despite coverage of specific incidents. Research also suggests many smuggling fentanyl across the border are U.S. citizens.
Former President Donald Trump has focused on this supposed connection at numerous campaign events.
Trump and other speakers have often framed crime, particularly violent crime, as rising. An RNC video Tuesday said crime was “rising everywhere.”
Madeline Brame, an advocate for victims’ rights and vocal opponent of bail reform whose son was stabbed to death in New York City, said in her speech to the RNC that prosecutors did not properly punish the men charged in that case.
“Soft-on-crime prosecutors like Alvin Bragg in New York, Kim Foxx in Chicago and George Gascon in Los Angeles have turned our great country and cities into war zones,” Brame said.
The Pre-Trial Fairness Act, which ushered bail reform into Illinois, uses a judge’s discretion in a decision to release a suspect, and supporters often say defendants would not be released in murder cases.
The caveat to an analysis of bail reform in Illinois is that analysis is limited because the law was enacted less than a year ago. While the change in law has reduced jail populations in some areas, the long-term impact on crime and economics is still unknown.
Despite a significant decline in violent crime over the past three decades, a majority of Americans still believe crime rates are rising, reflecting a persistent gap between public perception and the data. In 85% of public polls conducted by Gallup since 1993, respondents said there was more crime now than in the past year despite a consistent decrease.
Not every agency participates in federal crime data programs, so the picture can be incomplete, but escalating violent crime is not supported by publicly available data.
There has been a sharp drop in murder in 2023 and so far in 2024, not just in Chicago but across the country, according to figures compiled by researcher Jeff Asher. The city is a far cry in 2024 from its murder counts in the 1970s through 1990s, which were typically 25% higher than today. Chicago had 974 murders in 1974 compared to 618 last year.
“Sometimes, what the official measure of crime is, isn't what matters to people,” David Olson said. “It’s how they feel or how they perceive things.”
Olson, a professor of criminal justice at Loyola University-Chicago, said public opinion is shaped by news coverage and politicians who can have a greater influence than any academic.
Violent crime in Chicago has also trended downward recently following a pandemic rise. Data did show a 12% increase in property crime over the past year in Chicago, according to the latest CPD annual report. Gun crime has risen recently, but is still below levels decades ago.
“Crime has been going down for the last three decades. Tell that to the people who live in Highland Park after the Fourth of July shooting, and they’ll say you’re nuts,” Olson said. “Tell people in communities in Chicago, like Englewood, that crime is down in their community. Well, we still see people killed. And that’s what we’re going to frame our perspective on.”
Media organizations don’t cover every crime, and often focus on events like murder and mass shootings, which make up a smaller percentage of overall crime.
National office holders don’t tell local police and politicians what to do, but their words can affect change. It has been a common refrain for many running for office since Richard Nixon.
“What the president says trickles down to the public.” Olson said. “If the public believes what they say, and are influenced by what they say, then they can put pressure on their local elected officials.”
‘Handouts Not Handcuffs’
Crime analyses often point to the example of Chicago. The city is frequently at the top of the list of U.S. cities with the most homicides each year.
Population, density, gun laws and economic conditions are all factors helping to explain crime in Chicago and across the country. It’s critical to keep these influences in context when discussing violent crime.
Researchers sometimes compare different communities through a rate to control for population. The trend of high rates of homicide have existed for decades, but Chicago is never at the top.
In 2023, New Orleans and St. Louis, two cities in Republican states, had a homicide rate nearly twice that of Chicago. However, politicians rarely point to those cities when speaking broadly about crime.
Chicago has historically been a city run by Democrats. However, crime has generally decreased in Chicago no matter who occupied the White House, City Hall or the state’s attorney’s office. If the information is viewed through this frame, it can be weaponized in election season.
“If they’re in office, they’re going to tout declines in crime and attribute that decline because of the policies that they implemented,” Olson said. “Their opponents are going to point to crimes that might have gone up, and blame those failures on the incumbent.”
None of the speakers Tuesday presented gun control as a potential solution to violence.
Many at the RNC did frame the discussion around police budgets. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird criticized Democrats for supporting “handouts not handcuffs,” and criticized efforts to defund police.
Recent research found most major city police departments’ budgets did not decrease following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. In Republican-leaning municipalities, budgets increased, while they remained flat in Democratic-leaning ones.
Escalating police salaries guaranteed by contracts, staffing shortages and rising overtime make controlling costs at police agencies difficult.
Olson said the effectiveness of new policies can’t be judged immediately, and that the justice system isn’t always the best mechanism to deal with those encountered by police.
There is always room for improvement in criminal justice policy, Olson said, but cautioned against abandoning strategies because of the latest rise in a particular crime.
The highest crime years of the 1980s and 1990s were also a major tough-on-crime era. Approaches shifted to a more evidence-based model, and police and the courts put individuals in contact with substance-abuse or mental-health care that has proven effective, Olson said.
Measuring the impact of economic policies, school reform, housing efforts and public health takes time. Olson hopes leaders are measured when choosing and evaluating public safety strategies following the election, particularly those connected to using complex institutions including education to lower crime.
“The justice system as a whole has moved towards policies and practices that don’t focus exclusively on punishment,” Olson said. “To see the fruits of that takes more than six months or a year.”
