Taking a strong stance on safety means saying what’s true:

safety and justice go hand in hand.

Friends,



It can be complicated to track conversations about crime, safety and violence because many things are true at the same time. They can seem but are not contradictory. And, to make matters more confusing, we are inundated by bad information and overly simplistic takes that make it challenging to understand what’s actually happening and what to do or say about it. In the weeks and months leading up to the election, some media and pundits will attempt to tangle us up even more than usual, so I wanted to use this communication to dig in a little deeper on what we know about advancing safety and justice together.

A few things that are true all at once:

1. We are not as safe as we should be. America has a serious, long-term violence problem, with particularly devastating effects in Black and Brown communities.
2. We are much, much safer as a country than we were 30 years ago, and we are currently experiencing major drops in homicide rates and historically low rates of property crime.
3. Many of us do not feel America is safe. For some of us that’s because we are not in fact safe. For others, it’s because we have a sense that others around us are not safe. 
4. We know a lot about what works to increase safety and it’s not mass incarceration. We’ve got a ton of evidence about the investments, policies and practices with the strongest public safety returns. Mass incarceration doesn’t make the list–it does not keep us safe or solve our social problems. 

Ok, let’s dig in on those.

We are not as safe as we should be. America has struggled with violence, specifically gun violence, for decades. Estimates suggest we have more guns in this country than people. The U.S. gun homicide rate ranks first among large, high-income countries. Fatalities from mass shootings have more than doubled in the past decade. And though the effects are widespread, they are not felt equally: Black Americans are 12 times more likely than white Americans to die by gun homicide. Gun violence is most concentrated in areas with the highest levels of poverty. 

We are much, much safer as a country than we were 30 years ago. We also have much less violence than we used to, even with the tragic two-year surge in homicides our country experienced during the pandemic. I want to pause for a moment and get clear about what’s happened with crime and violence over the past few years–because even for those of us paying close attention it can be hard to sort out fact from fiction. Here’s what we know:

• The U.S. has had 30 years of mostly declining violent crime.
• Gun homicides drove the violent crime increase during the pandemic. These horrific crimes rose sharply in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing to climb into 2021, before beginning to decline in 2022.
• Initial data points to a historic decline in homicides in 2023 and further major declines halfway through 2024.
• These shifts bring the violent crime rate below its pre-pandemic levels, to again hit the lowest rate since the late 1960s.
• Property crime also declined in 2023 and early in 2024 and is near or at 2019 levels, following a long downward trajectory. Burglary and theft both declined in 2023 and early 2024. 
• Car thefts increased in the past several years driven by viral social media videos that showed how to exploit manufacturing vulnerabilities and steal certain models, but thankfully this trend seems to be reversing in 2024.
• The overall crime rate remains much lower than at its peak in the 1990s. Americans were nearly 70% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime in 2022 compared to 1993. 
• None of that means we are safe enough or that we don’t still have unacceptably high rates of violence. In fact, we should be extremely focused on the solutions that will actually work to drive those rates down further.

Many of us do not feel America is safe. You might say to me: but poll after poll tells us that Americans don’t feel safe. What we see in polling is most people say that they are safe themselves but think that others in other places are not safe, contributing to an overall sense that America is not safe. Some people–a minority–answering polls are, in fact, living in unsafe conditions. Most, however, are experiencing a heavy stream of media that lead them to believe that crime and violence is widespread and increasing even if they themselves are not experiencing it.

Thankfully, we know a lot about what works to increase safety and it’s not mass incarceration.

We now have a large evidence base supporting specific interventions that drive crime and violence down. These are precisely the kinds of policies and programs we need to be supporting if we want to be serious about safety. 

There’s strong evidence that investments in community infrastructure and community-led interventions played a large role in the great crime decline from the 1990’s to today. Take this finding: in a city with 100,000 people, every ten new nonprofits focused on strengthening the neighborhood or addressing violence reduces the murder rate by 9%, the violent crime rate by 6%, and the property crime rate by 4%. Given how costly crime is, in terms of suffering and also in terms of dollars and cents, that’s quite a return on investment. 

With this context, it’s unsurprising that a once-in-a-century fracturing of our social structures and safety nets led to a major spike in violence. As the stresses of the pandemic eased, and because our government made historic investments in community responses to gun violence, we now see a return to our previous downward trajectory. 

On the other hand, we have decades of research showing that mass incarceration is among the most expensive and least effective ways to advance public safety. In fact, incarceration often increases the likelihood that people will return to jail or prison, as well as generating a whole host of harmful consequences for families and communities, particularly Black communities. It also disrupts the very social fabric–health, housing, financial security, family togetherness–that leads to safer communities.  

We also know we can reduce incarceration safely–we’ve been doing it! In the past decade, 45 states reduced crime and incarceration at the same time–and crime fell twice as fast in those states than in the five that increased. The best evidence to-date shows that reforms to cash bail in New Jersey and Illinois are working safely. In fact, reforms such as expanding parole in Mississippi and releasing people from federal prison through the First Step Act actually show lower recidivism among impacted groups. Let’s sum that up: mass incarceration exacerbates the conditions that make us unsafe, we know we can reduce it safely, and we have great evidence about what to do instead.

Voters get it. Nearly 2 in 3 voters believe that mass incarceration contributes to social problems that lead to unsafe communities like homelessness, drug and mental health challenges, and poverty, as opposed to only 1 in 17 who believe that locking more people up leads to safer communities. Voters prefer messages focused on safety solutions to tough-on-crime rhetoric. And three-fourths of Democrats would be more likely to vote for a candidate that supports reform.

We can build the safer and more just country we want, and we aren't there yet. There is so much more work to do to address violence, and make our streets and communities both feel and be safer for all of us. With so much at stake–both practically and politically–we must do everything in our power to get our policies and our messaging right on this issue. Below you’ll find some responses to questions that have come up in our conversations. If there’s a specific question you’ve been getting or you want more guidance on how to talk about crime, safety, and justice, send us a note at cjreform@fwd.us.

Zoë Towns

Executive Director, FWD.us

P.S. Missed our first newsletter on navigating criminal justice reform in 2024? Check it out here.