Crime Is Statistically Low. So Why Does Everything Feel So Lawless?

Because the stats don’t measure broken windows, stolen dignity, or the places you’re too scared to take your kids.

You know this in your gut. Crime rates are down — the charts say so. But walk down your main street. Try to grab coffee without stepping over someone passed out. Take your kid to the park and scan for needles before letting them run. Ride the subway and hold your bag tighter because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. That’s not “crime” on a spreadsheet. But it damn sure feels like lawlessness. And voters aren’t idiots for caring about it.

Boulder Creek - years ago we would take our kids there on the weekend

Here’s the brutal truth most politicians won’t say: People don’t vote based on FBI quarterly reports. They vote based on what they see, smell, and feel every damn day.

You can recite the stats until you’re blue in the face: violent crime down 15%, property crime down 8%, yadda yada. Good. Great. Wonderful. Meanwhile, the Target down the street has half its shelves wrapped in plastic because shoplifters treat it like a self-service warehouse. The bus stop smells like urine and despair. The playground you used to love? Now you Google “is it safe to go to X park today” before leaving the house.

That’s not petty. That’s not hysteria. That’s people protecting their quality of life.

This isn’t just about crime. It’s about coarseness. It’s about the thousand little indignities that pile up until a city doesn’t feel like yours anymore.

• You don’t call the cops because you know they won’t come — or if they do, nothing changes.

• You stop going to that great taqueria because the sidewalk out front is a shooting gallery.

• You tell your teenager not to take the train alone — not because of muggings, but because of the guy screaming at ghosts.

These things don’t show up in “Part I” crime stats. But they’re the reason your neighbor who voted for Obama twice is now flirting with the guy who yells about “law and order” on Facebook.

And here’s the part no one talks about — it’s killing the cops too.

You think they like showing up to the same encampment for the 47th time? You think they enjoy telling a schizophrenic man screaming at traffic to “just move 50 feet down the sidewalk” — knowing he’ll be back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that? They’re not heartless. They signed up to help. To protect. To fix things.

Instead, they’re stuck in a demoralizing loop: respond, shuffle, repeat. No housing. No treatment. No consequences. No resolution. Just a uniformed band-aid on a hemorrhaging system.

They’re not asking for more handcuffs. They’re asking for backup — social workers, beds, programs, accountability. They want to solve the problem, not perform bureaucratic theater. And when we refuse to give them the tools, we break their spirit. And then we wonder why recruitment is collapsing and morale is in the toilet.

Here’s where Democrats keep screwing this up.

They hear “crime is a voter concern” and immediately jump to: “But the numbers! The trend lines! The peer-reviewed studies!”

Wrong. Dead wrong.

When someone tells you their street feels unsafe, they’re not asking for a lecture on statistical significance. They’re asking: “What are you going to do about it?”

If your answer is “Actually, things are better than they seem,” you’ve already lost. You sound like a bureaucrat. Or worse — like you don’t care.

So what’s the answer?

Not “lock ‘em all up.” Not “defund the police” without a real plan to replace what they currently do (poorly).¹

The answer is restoring order — not through brutality, but through competence.

• Clear the encampments — and offer real shelter and treatment, not just sweeps.

• Staff the trains — not with cops, but with social workers and mental health responders.

• Fix the broken windows — literally and figuratively. Enforce quality-of-life laws that keep public spaces public.

• Hold repeat offenders accountable — not with longer sentences, but with guaranteed treatment, housing, and supervision.

This isn’t conservative. It’s common sense. And it’s deeply, unapologetically liberal — because it’s about building a society where everyone can live with dignity, safety, and peace.

The left used to understand this. We were the party that cleaned up cities, invested in communities, and believed government could actually solve problems.

Somewhere along the way, we got scared of sounding “tough.” We confused compassion with permissiveness. We let the streets scream while we whispered about root causes.

It’s time to grow a spine.

Fix the streets. Listen to the people. Support the cops with real tools, not just radios and handcuffs.

Because if we don’t? Someone else will. And they won’t care about your stats either.

P.S. If you forwarded this to someone who says “But the stats!” — good. Make them read it again.

1. I’m not saying the police are inept. I’m saying it’s something they’re not trained for and restricted from doing.