Key Points

• Community violence is one of the factors examined in a new book called “,” which examines how we can improve relationships, institutions, and community environments to expand upward mobility among kids.
• The book features from GCO’s director of criminal justice initatives, Josh Crawford, explaining how community violence affects kids and their futures. See an excerpt below.
• “Doing Right by Kids” is a thoughtful, accessible guide to improving opportunities in the communities where children’s lives are formed. .

Public safety and community violence are more critical now than they have ever been. With increasing societal tensions and the lingering effects of the pandemic, Americans—including Ģ����Ƶns—want to feel secure in their neighborhoods. The path to achieving this sense of security is clear: fund the police, hold violent offenders accountable, and ensure a fair and just system that doesn’t allow fear and lawlessness to prevail.

At the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity, we believe that addressing public safety and community violence is essential for creating thriving communities. This belief is echoed in a new book, which features a pivotal chapter by our very own Josh Crawford, GCO’s director of criminal justice initiatives.

In his chapter, Josh explores the significant impact of public safety and community violence on children and provides insightful solutions for rebuilding social capital and fostering safe environments.

Below is an excerpt from Josh’s chapter, “Kids and Community Violence: Costs, Consequences, and Solutions.” You can also read the full chapter here.

When it comes to improving opportunities for kids, we need better ideas. Now they’re here.��

When it comes to improving opportunities for kids, we need better ideas. Now they’re here.
of “Doing Right by Kids” today.��

“Doing Right by Kids” Excerpt: Why Focus More on Public Safety and Public Order?��

Walk into any suburban coffee shop in a low-crime neighborhood and look around. You’ll quickly notice the tables are populated by tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of laptops and smartphones, and designer purses sit on the floor. These items often go unguarded when patrons pick up their coffees or go to the bathroom. It’s the normal course of business in these establishments. No one fears these items will be stolen. There is an unconscious presupposition of public safety. This is what happens when the public order is upheld.

When this presumption of safety falls apart, however, people change their behavior. Following the expansion of remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, workers in New York City violence and crime as the primary reasons for not wanting to return to the office. Research on crime avoidance also finds that households will pay a premium to avoid violence. One 2011 of families in the San Francisco Bay Area in California found that the average household was willing to pay $472 per year to avoid a 10 percent increase in violent crime.

The United States has had varying degrees of success in public safety over the years. In the modern context, violent crime peaked in the United States in 1991 with 758.1 instances per 100,000 people, an increase of more than 470 percent from 1960. Homicide, the most destructive and permanent of the violent offenses, peaked in 1980 at a rate of 10.2 per 100,000 residents and in 1991 with a rate of 9.8 per 100,000 residents; in 1960 the murder rate had been almost half that at 5.1 per 100,000 residents.

After 1991, as a result of a number of changes in policing, sentencing, and a wide array of other hotly debated factors, homicide and violent crime declined significantly in cities across the country (Figures 1 and 2). This decline continued until 2014, when the homicide rate reached 4.4 per 100,000 and the violent-crime rate was 379.4 per 100,000. While this was a huge improvement from the highs of 1991, the violent-crime rate in 2014 was still more than double the rate in 1960. It has in recent years, with a jump in homicides in 2020.

Figure 1. US Homicide Rate per 100,000, 1960-2022

Figure 2. US Violent-Crime Rate per 100,000, 1960-2022

While the long-run decline in crime is important, it is ultimately too reassuring because no one lives in “the nation.” Aggregated data erase important variations from state to state, city to city, and neighborhood to neighborhood. People live in communities, not the whole nation.

Despite these declines in violent crime often being disproportionately , violence continues to concentrate at the sub-city level. One of gun violence in Boston, for example, found that these crimes were concentrated in less than five percent of one-block street segments and intersections. The “law of crime concentration” generally that in large cities, about 50 percent of crime occurs in about five percent of street segments. Crime is even more concentrated in smaller cities, where, on average, between two and four percent of street segments for 50 percent of violence. These micro-communities lack the minimum levels of safety and order that are precursors for human flourishing, and the effects of their violence propagate beyond these few hot zones.

Philosopher and political theorist James Burnham :

Human beings must have at least a minimum security in life and property, must be able to move through the streets and between the cities, must accept certain common rules in their mutual intercourse, or civilization does not exist. If this necessary order is subverted, the civilization is destroyed, whether the subversion takes place from the best or worst of motives, whether or not it is in some supposedly moral sense justified, whether it is carried out by saints or devils. At some point the guardians of a civilization must be prepared to draw the line.

For far too many children, this kind of order has been inconsistent at best and nonexistent at worst. For children in these neighborhoods, violence is pervasive and affects them both directly and indirectly. Those directly affected are the youth that join criminal street gangs and become perpetrators, as well as those who are either victimized themselves or kin to victims. Those indirectly affected are those who neither become perpetrators nor victims but who contend with the persistent fear, stress, and isolation that comes with growing up in a community with high rates of violence.

Bridging the gap for America’s kids

Overall, “” explores the truth that, while material hardship among American children is at an all-time low, upward mobility is still difficult for children in poor households and neighborhoods. Despite reduced hardship, children born to disadvantaged parents are still likely to grow up disadvantaged due to counterproductive policies within our safety net.��

The belief that increased financial support alone will advance poor children is inadequate. While progressive strategies have fallen short, conservative skepticism towards government intervention has also neglected the needs of these children.

Truly supporting America’s kids requires focusing on the building blocks of healthy and fulfilling lives—from neighborhood environments to family life to educational opportunities. “Doing Right By Kids” offers innovative proposals to rebuild social capital by strengthening relationships and institutions for children and adolescents, advocating for experimental approaches to identify effective, scalable policies.

For policymakers, community leaders, parents, and concerned citizens, “Doing Right by Kids” is a thoughtful, accessible guide to learning more about what kids really need from us and our society in order to thrive.

to get a copy and to share the book with neighbors and colleagues.��

The post Why Focus More on Public Safety and Order? Kids Need More of It. appeared first on For Opportunity.

A recent Pew Research Center examined American attitudes about the attainability of the American dream. Overall, 53% of respondents believed the American dream was still possible. 

Responses were remarkably consistent across race and differed only slightly by party affiliation (56% for Republicans, 50% for Democrats). 

Age was the factor where more drastic differences of opinion started to emerge. The younger the cohort, the lower the percentage of respondents who felt the American dream was still possible. 

• Age 65+: 68% believed the American dream was still possible.��
• Age 50-64: 61% thought the American dream was still possible.��
• Age 30-49: 43% felt the American dream was still possible.��
• Age 18-29: Just 39% agreed the American dream was still possible.����

Among the youngest groups, a larger percentage—48% of 30 to 49-year-olds and 51% of 18 to 29-year-olds—thought the American dream was once possible but no longer was. 

The current attainability of the American dream is subject to, not fleshed out here. One factor that deserves more attention is the role of public safety in shaping communities where people have opportunities for a better life for themselves and future generations.  

Of all the barriers to opportunity, violence is one of the most vicious because it can single-handedly upend all the building blocks of a flourishing life—family stability, access to quality education, and work opportunities. And a disproportionate amount of this suffering is borne by our poorest and most vulnerable communities. 

The impact of crime on children

Future generations have a harder time getting ahead in life. 

It’s clear from the data that nearly half of children raised in the poorest households—the bottom 20% of incomes—end up in that bottom 20% as adults. A tremendous number of factors contribute to this cycle of poverty—from the flaws in government safety net programs to the to improving educational and.

Then there’s the link between poverty and crime. One of the most visceral and heartbreaking things that impacts a child’s upward mobility is growing up in a community with a high rate of violence.

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, about 3.6 million kids in communities their parents deem to be “unsafe.”

The level of violent crime in a county the level of upward economic mobility among individuals raised in low-income families. Opportunities decline because high rates of violence reduce productivity among crime victims, depress economic activity, reduce home values, and drive out residents who can leave.��

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, about 3.6 million kids live in communities their parents deem to be “unsafe.”

The impact of crime on local economies

Communities become economically unhealthy. 

A relationship between poverty and crime also manifests itself in the effects that violence has on employment. Several studies have demonstrated that direct victimization is associated with more unemployment and less productivity at work. 

• A study of violent trauma patients found a between victimization and unemployment.��
• Another study found that, following the homicide of a family member, employment 27% among surviving family members.��
• In a sample of parents whose children had been murdered, 50% of the parents perceived themselves as nonproductive at their jobs in the four months after the murder.

High rates of violent crime don’t just impact victims. Rising crime has been with business activity, resulting in downsizing and discouraging new businesses from entering the marketplace.

Neighborhoods then lose out on opportunities for jobs and affordable access to food, household items, and other essential goods and services. 

looked at the impact of gun violence on the economic health of neighborhoods in six cities: Baton Rouge, LA; Minneapolis, MN; Oakland, CA; Rochester, NY; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC. The findings were remarkably consistent. An increase in gun violence in a census tract reduced the growth rate of new retail and service establishments by 4% in Minneapolis, Oakland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. 

In Minneapolis, each additional gun homicide in a census tract in a given year was associated with 80 fewer jobs the next year; in Oakland, a gun homicide was associated with 10 fewer jobs the next year. 

“Local and state governments must focus on reducing violent crime, not just as necessary to protect human life but also because doing so is a prerequisite to real economic opportunity in poor communities.”

Josh Crawford, GCO Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives

The impact of crime on neighborhoods

Communities stop becoming places that people want to call home.

Studies have also found that increases in gun violence hurt property values.

• In Minneapolis: Each additional gun homicide resulted in a in average home values in Minneapolis census tracts.
• In Oakland: Each additional gun homicide resulted in a in Oakland census tracts.
• In Los Angeles: found that increases in violent crime in a neighborhood in a given year yielded decreases in property values in that neighborhood the following year.��

And those who can leave communities with high rates of violence, do. One found that, for every homicide, 70 residents move out of a neighborhood.

Finally, increased violent crime often, justifiably, leads to more incarceration. But communities with higher rates of incarcerated parent-aged men weaker social institutions and are more unstable. 

To have vibrant communities and flourishing lives, public safety must take priority.

Improving economic conditions and opportunities for any community, but especially low-income neighborhoods, is incredibly difficult without first reducing violence.

One of the most recent examples is the great crime decline of the 1990s, which the most desperate neighborhoods and improved life among their residents. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. Decades of policy innovation, evaluation, and replication have taught us how to make communities safer and break the interconnected cycles of poverty and crime.

The most effective methods include:

• Focusing law enforcement efforts on criminal street gangs
• Punishing violent recidivists appropriately
• Reducing the presence of abandoned buildings in crime hot spots

People have a deep need to feel safe and secure in the places where they live, work, and go about their day-to-day lives. Providing a safe environment is government’s first responsibility to its people.

When it comes to public safety, making good policy choices changes lives—not only by reducing physical harm but also by transforming neighborhoods into places where the American Dream can still be found.

Visit our public safety resource page to learn more about policy solutions and see recommendations for specific cities. 

The post Poverty and Crime in America: What Can Happen in a Neighborhood When Violent Crime Goes Up appeared first on For Opportunity.

Kentucky state lawmakers voted Friday to override a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear of House Bill 5, the Safer Kentucky Act. The new law will lower crime by addressing gang-related violence, updating carjacking laws, facilitating successful reentry programs, and more.

The Center for Opportunity’s take: “Although all of Kentucky will benefit from this new law, the positives will be concentrated in poor and low-income communities, where the impacts of crime are felt disproportionately,” said��Josh Crawford, director of criminal justice initiatives for the Center for Opportunity. “We can’t even begin to discuss the best ways to economically revitalize an area until we address the crime problem. Safe streets lead to thriving communities. The Safer Kentucky Act is a crucial step forward in achieving this end.”

For more on the Safer Kentucky Act,��click here.

The post Kentucky Lawmakers Override Governor’s Veto to Pass Safer Kentucky Act, Targeting Crime in Low-Income Areas appeared first on For Opportunity.

A new community initiative is set to launch in Columbus, but it’s not run by any one person or organization. It’s running name is the “Columbus Empowerment Initiative.”

The program is based on – but not affiliated with – a similar group in Nebraska, the Omaha Empowerment Initiative. The Nebraska-based group, also known as Omaha 360, is “focused on Collaboration, Prevention, Intervention, Enforcement Support, Reentry and Community Engagement,” according to its .

Roughly 60 individuals showed up, including Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson, local philanthropists, businesspersons and other community leaders. Representatives of the Ģ����Ƶ Center Opportunity and Better Work Columbus were also in attendance.

“Violence, homicide in particular, is the worst thing that a human being can do to another person,” said Josh Crawford, director of criminal justice initiatives at the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity.

He continued, “By restoring public safety in a community with a high rate of violence, you’re really taking the first step towards making a more prosperous and flourishing community.”

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We know that crime in major metro areas across the United States is up. Here in Ģ����Ƶ, Atlanta is front and center on that issue, highlighted by a recent report by the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity showing a concerning rise in violent and property crime over the last few years.

While the crime problem in larger cities is crucial to address, smaller cities tend to get overlooked. Yet these cities represent a large portion of the country’s population. , but only 14 cities with populations over one million.

Take Columbus, Ģ����Ƶ as an example. —a slight reduction from 2020 when the population was 207,000. Since 2017, Columbus has seen a spike in crime.

The crime problem—and what to do about it—is the focus of a new GCO report. Titled “Reducing Crime in Columbus: Safer Communities Through Policy,” the report is authored by Josh Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at GCO.

Quick Facts on Crime in Columbus

• Columbus saw one of its most violent years with 59 murders in 2021.
• The city’s population is on the decline, correlated to the rise in violent crime.
• A decrease in Columbus police has gone hand-in-hand with the crime spike.
• Attempted murder convicts in Columbus who were released in 2022 only served 35% of their time.

“The human cost of this violence is dramatic, cutting lives short and leaving behind grieving families and fractured communities,” Crawford said. “The toll of violent crime goes beyond the physical cost to those directly impacted and includes financial costs to victims and taxpayers, the loss of productive years, and decreased economic mobility and growth in communities afflicted with high rates of crime.”

Access the Report:

Reducing Crime in Columbus

Our Columbus Crime Report details six practical solutions that city leaders can use to reduce crime in Columbus and restore safety, hope, and opportunity to the broader community. 

Learn Ģ����Ƶ the Report

Why Smaller Cities Matter

Our focus at GCO is on empowering underserved, disadvantaged, and low-income communities. By starting with Columbus, we want to equip more of these overlooked cities across Ģ����Ƶ and the U.S. with policy reforms that will reduce crime and restore community safety. 

Six Policy Recommendations to Reduce Crime

Because Columbus is smaller, it’s easier to implement changes that would make a big difference. Success in Columbus could provide a model to inspire change in similar-sized cities.

Fixing the Columbus crime problem is about focusing on the most violent offenders. By addressing gang-related violence and solving more homicide investigations, Columbus can restore community safety, improve trust with city officials and law enforcement, and expand upward mobility and opportunity for residents.

Crawford suggests:

• Addressing disrepair in Columbus’ communities by expanding cleanup efforts, tearing down or renovating abandoned buildings, and installing adequate street lighting.
  
• Building trust between community residents and law enforcement and social services, particularly through protecting the rights of victims.
  
• Removing egregious offenders from communities by implementing gang-enhancement provisions such as SB44 (2023) that keep these individuals incarcerated.
• Improving and requiring pre-entry cognitive behavioral therapy services for all juvenile offenders, no matter how non-violent their offenses.
• Reevaluating reentry programs through an external third party, examining the impact on revocation, rearrest, and reconviction.

The post Why crime in smaller cities like Columbus matters appeared first on For Opportunity.

Violent crime is on the rise in Columbus, Ģ����Ƶ. What are the reasons, and can anything be done to stop it? Those questions are the topic of a new report from the Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity (GCO) focused on Columbus’ recent spike in crime and ideas on how to mitigate it.

Titled “Reducing Crime in Columbus: Safer Communities Through Policy,” the report is authored by Josh Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at GCO.

Access the Report:

Reducing Crime in Columbus

Our Columbus Crime Report details six practical solutions that city leaders can use to reduce crime in Columbus and restore safety, hope, and opportunity to the broader community.��

Learn More Ģ����Ƶ This Report

Reducing Crime in Columbus: Safer Communities through Policy

“Since 2017, crime has been on the rise in Columbus. And it’s only gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Crawford said. “It’s imperative that city and community leaders come together to solve this problem. Our new report provides the groundwork.”

Quick Facts on Crime in Columbus

• Columbus saw one of its most violent years with 59 murders in 2021.
• The city’s population is on the decline, correlated to the rise in violent crime.
• A decrease in Columbus police has gone hand-in-hand with the crime spike.
• Attempted murder convicts in Columbus who were released in 2022 only served 35% of their time.

“The human cost of this violence is dramatic, cutting lives short and leaving behind grieving families and fractured communities,” Crawford said. “The toll of violent crime goes beyond the physical cost to those directly impacted and includes financial costs to victims and taxpayers, the loss of productive years, and decreased economic mobility and growth in communities afflicted with high rates of crime.”

Six Policy Recommendations to Reduce Crime

Fixing the Columbus crime problem is about focusing on the most violent offenders. By addressing gang-related violence and solving more homicide investigations, Columbus can restore community safety, improve trust with city officials and law enforcement, and expand upward mobility and opportunity for residents.

Crawford suggests:

• Addressing disrepair in Columbus’ communities by expanding cleanup efforts, tearing down or renovating abandoned buildings, and installing adequate street lighting.
  
• Building trust between community residents and law enforcement and social services, particularly through protecting the rights of victims.
  
• Removing egregious offenders from communities by implementing gang-enhancement provisions such as SB44 (2023) that keep these individuals incarcerated.
• Improving and requiring pre-entry cognitive behavioral therapy services for all juvenile offenders, no matter how non-violent their offenses.
• Reevaluating reentry programs through an external third party, examining the impact on revocation, rearrest, and reconviction.

Schedule An Interview

Ģ����Ƶ The Author

Josh Crawford

Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives

Josh Crawford is a native of Massachusetts. He went to Penn State for his undergraduate degree and then finished law school in Boston. After a brief stint in Sacramento, California, working in the county district attorney’s office, Josh moved to Kentucky to help start the Pegasus Institute, a nonpartisan organization designed to promote opportunity. In addition to serving as executive director of the organization, Josh had a special focus on criminal justice policy.

“By focusing on public safety and order, we can restore hope and opportunity to rural communities.”

The post New Report Seeks to Ease Spike in Columbus Crime, Restore Community Safety appeared first on For Opportunity.

The post New Report Seeks to Ease Spike in Atlanta Crime, Restore Community Safety appeared first on For Opportunity.

Key Points

• The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity is releasing a new report on rising violent crime in Atlanta and ways to address it.
• Most crimes tend to cluster in compact, high-density regions controlled by violent gangs.
• Foster trust between community members and law enforcement and social services, with a specific focus on safeguarding the rights of victims.

The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity is announcing a new report on violent crime in Atlanta, which highlights the city’s recent spike in violent crime and how to mitigate it.��

Josh Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at GCO, developed the report, along with recommendations for reducing violent crime in Atlanta.����

“The brief and its recommendations are designed to create a base level of what order and public safety should look like across the board,” Crawford says. “It’s imperative that we have an intentional conversation about the state of crime in Atlanta now, and how we can improve that for the future.”��

According to Crawford’s report, criminal activity reduces opportunities in both small communities and metropolitan areas, destabilizing them in the process. In addition, crime devalues both businesses and individuals in those areas.��

Although there have been positive steps toward improvement in Atlanta during recent years, there’s still work to be done. Some of those measures still need to be implemented, while other solutions need to be developed. In his report, Crawford shares a number of recommendations.

A Dramatic Spike in Violent Crime

Since 2018, the rates of violent crime and homicide have increased dramatically in Atlanta. The largest spike occurred during 2020 and was a reflection of the broader trend nationwide. Between 2009 and 2017, homicides in Atlanta tended to average 90 or fewer, with a few exceptions in 2008 (105) and 2016 (113).

Since the rise in violent crime began in 2018, Atlanta has not experienced a year with fewer than 80 murders, with an additional 217 people murdered over the previous decade’s average.��

On top of the rising crime, many convicted violent criminals in Ģ����Ƶ aren’t serving out their full sentences. As a result, they’re being released back onto the streets long before their sentences end. For example:��

• Attempted murder convicts released during 2022 had only served 7.91 years of their sentences on average, or 35.78% of the time they were meant to serve
• That same year, aggravated assault convicts had only served 4.03 years on average, or 29.57% of their sentences
• Felons convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm had served only 2.83 years on average, or 27.29% of their full sentences

To make matters worse, a dip in law enforcement personnel has coincided with the rise in crime.

Pinpointing High-Crime Areas in and Around Atlanta

Crawford says that the majority of crime tends to be concentrated in small, dense areas controlled by violent gangs.��

“We have to focus our efforts on gang-controlled areas across the city,” he says. “By doing that, we’ll start to see significant gains. It’s a more effective approach than trying to broaden our reach.”��

Once law enforcement has pinpointed high-crime areas, Crawford says they can then implement a series of strategies he calls “focused deterrence.” In other words, incidences of violent crime–such as homicides and shootings–would theoretically be reduced. This result is possible through concentrated social service and law enforcement activities in these gang-controlled sectors.��

Using the combined, competent approach of law enforcement and social services would enable individual criminals to undergo rehabilitation. These measures would emphasize getting to the root of the problem, and helping each person to make the necessary changes to his or her life.��

“We believe it’s not possible to truly help reduce crime without directly addressing the person or problem where it originates,” Crawford says.��

��“It’s imperative that we have an intentional conversation about the state of crime in Atlanta now, and how we can improve that for the future.”

– Josh Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at GCO

“It’s imperative that we have an intentional conversation about the state of crime in Atlanta now, and how we can improve that for the future.”

– Josh Crawford, Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at GCO

More Recommendations for Improving Community Safety��

In addition to narrowing the focus to areas of high gang activity and addressing individuals wherever possible, there are also things that can be done to improve community safety in those areas. Here are some of the steps Crawford recommends.��

• Address disrepair in Atlanta’s communities by expanding cleanup efforts, tearing down or renovating abandoned buildings, and installing adequate street lighting
• Build trust between community residents and law enforcement and social services, particularly through protecting the rights of victims
• Remove egregious offenders from communities by implementing gang-enhancement provisions such as SB44 (2023) that keep these individuals incarcerated
• Improve and require pre-entry cognitive behavioral therapy services for all juvenile offenders, no matter how non-violent their offenses
• Reevaluate reentry programs through an external third party, examining the impact on revocation, rearrest, and reconviction��

Through this strategic, multi-layered approach, Crawford estimates that it would be possible to reduce Atlanta’s caseload to no more than six homicides each year.��

Schedule An Interview

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Key Points

• A new report reveals Seattle’s murder rate defied national trends with a 13% increase in homicides in 2022.��
• Washington has veered toward the wrong side of the “crime divide” as violent and property crime have worsened in the wake of recent policy decisions.
• Enacting best practices for crime reduction will empower cities like Seattle to reverse the violence.

Homicides were likely down nationwide—about 4% according to—in 2022. But declining national numbers only tell part of the story. Families and individuals don’t live in “the nation.” They live in specific communities that are much smaller. Unfortunately, the homicide declines experienced in the aggregate did not translate evenly across these communities.

Seattle’s Murder Rate Goes Opposite the National Decline��

2022 began what we have referred to as “” in which some cities saw dramatic decreases in homicide—40% in Richmond, VA, and 11% in Austin, TX, for example—while other cities continued to see increases in homicides. One of those cities, Seattle, WA, saw a 13% increase in homicides in 2022 compared to 2021.

A recently released from the Washington Association of Sheriffs further details this increase and shows a 15% rise in homicides statewide in Washington, once again setting a record for murders. Equally troubling, aggravated assaults, robberies, and car thefts were also up statewide. Car thefts are typically a good proxy for property crime because they have such high relative to other property offenses.

Seattle’s Crime Problem Is a Policy Choice

Once again, it’s clear that rising crime is a policy choice. Beginning in, the Seattle City Council voted two years in a row to cut police funding and are now due to resignations and early retirements. Seattle has also become one of the national standard-bearers for “revolving door” justice. The Seattle Times used a to highlight the problem.

Cuong Cao, was, as of Friday, still loose, described now by a federal justice spokesperson as a “fugitive.” There’s no reason for him to be a fugitive though, because he was arrested at 12th and Jackson last month, after police say they watched him selling fentanyl pills on the sidewalk and then crouching over a woman who was overdosing.

When Cao was booked, he was carrying heroin, meth and 88 “blues” — street slang for fentanyl pills — along with $800 in cash and a Canik 9-mm pistol. He’s got a slew of felony convictions for burglary, car theft and drug dealing, and he’s had 39 arrest warrants going back 20 years because of a propensity to not show up in court.

��Yet he was out of jail 45 hours later on just $2,500 bail, down from the $75,000 requested by prosecutors.

State policymakers have also played a role in exacerbating Washington’s crime problem. In 2021 they passed into law two “police reform” bills ( and) that limited pursuits, use of force, and other tactics in a way that likely discouraged proactive policing. But the bad ideas roll on. Legislators have filed, but not yet passed bills that allow for for violent felons and for drive-by shootings. Passage of these measures would only make a bad situation worse, and further push Washington state down the path to more crime and more disorder.��

The tragic story of Christian Gwynn who was fatally shot as a result of violence is a wake-up call to the need for change in policies that will reduce urban violence.

The tragic story of Christian Gwynn who was fatally shot as a result of violence is a wake-up call to the need for change in policies that will reduce urban violence.

Reducing Crime is Essential to Building Vibrant Communities

��As I wrote in, there’s a direct link between rising crime and the well-being of our communities: “When communities become less safe, they become less prosperous. Our poorest residents end up shouldering the burden.”

Whether it’s Seattle, Atlanta, or any other city struggling with increasing violence, getting serious about reducing crime is more than a policy decision. It’s an act of compassion, especially toward the most vulnerable in our communities.

While bad decisions have led to increased crime, enacting best practices at the local and state level not only reverse Washington’s current trajectory but can meaningfully reduce violent and serious property crime so that Washingtonians can lead safer, more fulfilled lives.

Related Reading

A Path That Could Reduce Atlanta’s Juvenile Crime

Community Benefits of a Strong Police Force

There’s Hope for Reducing Crime in Ģ����Ƶ

Schedule An Interview

Ģ����Ƶ The Author

Josh Crawford

Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives

Josh Crawford is a native of Massachusetts. He went to Penn State for his undergraduate degree and then finished law school in Boston. After a brief stint in Sacramento, California, working in the county district attorney’s office, Josh moved to Kentucky to help start the Pegasus Institute, a nonpartisan organization designed to promote opportunity. In addition to serving as executive director of the organization, Josh had a special focus on criminal justice policy.

“By focusing on public safety and order, we can restore hope and opportunity to rural communities.”

The post Why Seattle’s Murder Rate Has Surged Against National Decline appeared first on For Opportunity.

Today, Ģ����Ƶ Gov. Brian Kemp����preliminary grant awards totaling more than $83.5 million for 118 community safety projects, including for addressing staffing shortages for law enforcement.

The Ģ����Ƶ Center for Opportunity’s (GCO) take:��“We commend Gov. Kemp and the legislature for continuing their commitment to public safety, especially in an environment where we continue to see high crime rates in cities across the state,” said��Josh Crawford, director of criminal justice initiatives for GCO. “Ensuring safe communities requires involvement from all of us, including partnerships between state and local officials.”

Crawford recently wrote an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on a path forward in reducing Atlanta’s juvenile crime rate.��Read it here.

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