Republicans might finally take me seriously after years of warning: America suffers not from mass incarceration, but from mass under-incarceration. The system needs tougher sentences, not softer ones.
The brutal murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, allegedly at the hands of career criminal Decarlos Brown Jr. on a Charlotte commuter train, didn’t reveal anything new. It shocked the nation precisely because it put on camera what has become routine in our cities since the bipartisan “criminal justice reform” wave dismantled Reagan-era tough-on-crime policies.
Legislators will have a choice when they reconvene: Pass strong reforms like these or watch more innocent people die.
For every man like Brown who slipped through the cracks, at least 10 more walk free when they should be locked up for life.
Brown had been arrested 14 times since 2007. His record included assault, felony firearms possession, robbery, and larceny. He didn’t see the inside of a prison until 2014, when an armed robbery conviction earned him a mere four years. He racked up more arrests after his release in 2020, but neither prison nor psychiatric commitment followed. The justice system looked the other way.
The result was predictable. Brown’s obvious mental instability made him even more dangerous than an ordinary criminal. Yet over the last 15 years, Republicans and Democrats alike embraced “reform” that made second chances for the violent and insane a top priority. They weakened sentencing, gutted mandatory minimums, downgraded juvenile crimes, eased up on drugs and vagrancy, and abandoned broken-windows policing. Hard-won gains against crime and homelessness evaporated.
The final insult: Brown was last released on cashless bail by North Carolina Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, allegedly affiliated with a pro-criminal “second chances” group. But violent offenders don’t just get second chances. They get third, fourth, and 15th chances. Most criminals never even face charges. Prosecutors downgrade cases. Convicts skate on early release. The cycle spins on.
Look at the numbers. In 2024, the FBI’s incident-based reporting system logged over 12.2 million crimes. Strip away drug and gun cases, and the picture remains grim: 2.4 million violent crimes with no arrest. Another 1.25 million serious property crimes — arson, burglary, motor vehicle theft — with no arrest. Every year, more than a million offenders escape justice. Meanwhile, the nation’s prison and jail population sits at roughly 1.9 million.
Even when police make arrests, punishment rarely follows. In 2021, only 15,604 people went to prison for robbery despite 121,000 reported incidents. Just 4,894 went away for car theft out of 550,000 cases. Even homicide convictions lag far behind — just 6,081 murderers entered prison against more than 15,000 killings.
This isn’t a statistical fluke. It’s a system that fails to punish violent crime year after year.
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So what needs to change? Here’s a checklist every state legislature should adopt in the next session:
Legislators will have a choice when they reconvene: Pass strong reforms like these or watch more innocent people die.
Social media outrage won’t fix this crisis. Neither will empty calls for “accountability.” As Iryna’s grieving family warned, “This could have been anyone riding the light rail that night.”
That’s the truth — and unless lawmakers act, it will be the truth again tomorrow.
Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is attempting to reignite his political career after facing a brutal electoral loss in November 2024.
Brown relaunched his Senate campaign on Monday to try to take back an Ohio Senate seat after Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno defeated him in November by over 200,000 votes.
'Ohioans just rejected Sherrod Brown's radical agenda.'
Brown will be running alongside 75-year-old millionaire Fred Ode in the Democrat primary to ultimately face off against Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Husted was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in January to fill the Senate seat vacated by JD Vance after he became vice president.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee wasted no time before calling out Brown's track record, accusing him of selling out to the "far left."
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"Ohioans just rejected Sherrod Brown's radical agenda of allowing biological men to compete in women's sports, fueling mass illegal immigration, and failing to protect Ohio's good-paying manufacturing jobs," NRSC regional press secretary Nick Puglia said in a press release. "If Brown wins his primary, we remain confident voters will reject him again in 2026."
Brown boasted a steady streak of left-wing policies throughout the 18 years he served in the Senate.
The NRSC's attack ad said Brown pushed sex-change surgeries for children, "funneled money" to groups that wanted to defund the police, and embraced the open-borders, mass-amnesty policies that became commonplace within the Democratic Party.
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"Sherrod Brown didn't stand up for Ohio," the ad said. "He sold it out."
"Ohio deserves better. Not a liberal sellout like Sherrod Brown."
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After building a reputation for cutting federal jobs in Washington, D.C., the Department of Government Efficiency is now tied to an expansion of federal authority.
President Trump announced Monday he would take over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard — an unprecedented move that came less than a week after photos of a shirtless, bloodied 19-year-old former DOGE employee went viral. The president declared August 11 “Liberation Day” and vowed to end violent crime and homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.
Our nation’s capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.
Trump’s detractors immediately pointed out that violent crime, including shootings and homicides, has been falling in the district. They’re right — on paper. Violent crime is down 26% this year, according to the city’s own numbers. But those figures are under scrutiny after accusations that officials manipulated the data.
Homicides, which are harder to fudge, are down 12%: 99 killings through August 11 compared to 112 during the same period in 2024.
Numbers alone, however, can’t capture the lived reality. Having spent the last year of my 15-year career in D.C. at the city’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I spoke with residents desperate for change. One man told me he and his pregnant wife dove to the floor when a bullet smashed through their window. Another woman worked with neighbors to demand more police patrols. Their frustrations highlight the fact that crime isn’t just a local issue but a hyperlocal one.
One activist I met has kept a memorial wall for homicide victims in his apartment since the 1990s. Some of the kids he mentored, he said, cherished the photos and videos because they were the only images they had of their fathers. In D.C., more than 60% of murders happen in just two of the city’s eight wards — far from tourist landmarks and high-end retail stores. Last August, a Democrat council member from one of those neighborhoods called for the National Guard himself after a wave of shootings.
Yet, those communities — overwhelmingly poor and black — rarely drive the political conversation about crime. Conservatives, like progressives, focus on the violence and vagrancy near their offices, homes, and favorite restaurants. That’s not a criticism; it’s human nature.
Everyone wants to feel safe where they live, work, and visit. But people from places where one murder makes front-page news can’t easily grasp how easy it is to grow numb to constant violence and disorder.
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The left has its own contradictions. Leftists had no problem with the FBI combing through a NASCAR garage when they thought driver Bubba Wallace had been the target of a hate crime. More than 90% of D.C.’s homicide victims are black, yet racial inequality in violent crime barely registers among self-described antiracists.
Likewise, in 2021, commentator Roland Martin demanded a federal crackdown on “white domestic terrorism.” But he didn’t explain how many murder victims in D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Chicago were killed by skinheads or neo-Nazis.
Whether the federal takeover will reduce crime remains to be seen. Conservatives frustrated by the government’s inability to produce the Epstein files might be overestimating how quickly crime can be cleaned up. Real change will require coordination across every level of government.
Still, my hope is simple: that whatever is done in D.C. will make it safer for residents, workers, and visitors alike. Our capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.
For years, Washington, D.C.’s so-called leaders resigned themselves to the idea that crime was inevitable. Then came President Donald Trump, who saw a problem and took the novel approach of actually doing something about it — sending in the National Guard to restore order in the capital. The result? For the first time in ages, […]
Democrats and the dying media know they have no leg to stand on when it comes to crime, but because they can never just sit still and be quiet, they’re acting like they have deep thoughts on law and order. No, thanks! They don’t get to adopt positions like “defund the police,” throwing the country […]
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