Key Points

In state and local elections, voters across the political spectrum chose candidates who shared their priority for greater public safety and order.

While the 2024 election represents different things to different voters, it may well be remembered, as my friend Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute put it, as the “anti-crime election.” 

In recent years, there has been a divide between elected officials and the public when it comes to crime. As more local leaders have taken relaxed stances to public safety, voters have become increasingly concerned. 

With the 2024 election, this crime divide between voters and politicians has narrowed because voters changed their politicians. As Mangual lays out in a great new piece in City Journal, voters all over the country rejected soft-on-crime approaches to public safety, including in progressive enclaves like Oakland, CA.

Source: Associated Press, “What election issues are Americans searching on Google?”, October 2024

From Georgia to California, voters reject the “progressive prosecutor” movement

Voters favor local candidates and ballot measures focused on stronger public safety 

Key Points

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 Georgians—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 Georgia 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, “Doing Right by Kids: Leveraging Social Capital and Innovation to Increase Opportunity,” 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.
Get your copy of “Doing Right by Kids” today. 

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

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 experienced in disadvantaged neighborhoods, violence continues to concentrate at the sub-city level. One study 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 states 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 are responsible 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 observed:

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, “Doing Right By Kids” 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.

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

Key Points

A recent Pew Research Center poll 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 much debate, 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 affordability of housing to improving educational options and outcomes.

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 live in communities their parents deem to be “unsafe.”

The level of violent crime in a county negatively affects 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.”

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 positive association between victimization and unemployment. 
• Another study found that, following the homicide of a family member, employment went down 27% among surviving family members. 
• In a sample of parents whose children had been murdered, more than 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 negatively associated 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. 

One large analysis 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

“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 $22,000 decrease in average home values in Minneapolis census tracts.
• In Oakland: Each additional gun homicide resulted in a $24,621 decrease in Oakland census tracts.
• In Los Angeles: A separate study 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 estimate 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 often have 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 dramatically improved 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.