If you haven’t voted yet, please read this!
Blue State crime is surging, at least according to Fox News coverage. Fear of rising crime is having an impact on voters in the 2022 mid-term elections even though the Fox News claims are not true. In 2021 and 2022, Fox News talking heads kept harping away on a fictional rising crime rate across the United States in stir up voter fear and pull undecided voters into the Republican Party column.
Data released by the FBI in October puts the lie to Fox News claims. Violent crime nationally did not increase in 2021. Meanwhile crime victimization data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that the number of reported violent crimes remained flat in 2021 and was less than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fox News coverage consistently blames its fictional crime surge on soft-on-crime Democratic Party governors and Mayors, another “Big Lie.” A number of Republican controlled cities and states are among the most violent in the United States including #1 Alaska. Its most dangerous city is Anchorage. Alaska has a Republican Governor and Anchorage has a Republican Mayor. Other Republican controlled states in the top ten are Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina.
In 2020, Red State Oklahoma had 342 homicides, a rate of 9 deaths per 100,000 people. In California, the homicide rate was 6.1 and in New York 4.7. Oklahoma had violent crimes in 18,255 in 2020, which translates into a violent crime rate of 458.6. In New York the violent crime rate was far lower at 363.8. New York City’s violent crime rate was also lower than
That hasn’t stopped Republican candidate for Governor Lee Zeldin from using manufactured fear of crime as his leading campaign issue. As a result of Republican politicos and Fox News, in a recent poll fear of crime was the top concern of New York voters. What the poll didn’t show is that crime is a not-so-subtle rightwing attack euphemism for stirring up white fear of people of color. According to Sharon Austin Wright, a University of Florida political science professor, crime horror stories are “about race and tapping suburbanites’ fears about Black criminals coming into their communities, even if that fear is unfounded.” Crime and socialism have replaced states’ rights and opposition to school bussing as terms used to tap into racial animus.
Despite Lee Zeldin’s wild exaggerations, New York City is relatively safe when compared with most places in the country. The number of murders is down 32% in 2022 compared to 2021 and shootings are down 33%. In 2021, major felony reports were about the same as in 2010. A New York Times analysis shows that at the current rate of 1.2 violent crimes for every one million subway rides, the chance of getting mugged on the subway is about the same as getting injured in a car crash if you are only driving your car two miles.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York City’s deaths per 100,000 people are much lower than in smaller rural and suburban communities. In Queens the average rate of violent deaths over the last few years is 3 per 100,000 people. In Jefferson County, Arkansas the violent death rate is ten times higher and it is eight times higher in Robeson County, North Carolina.
Maybe Lee Zeldin should run for office in those states.
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