Republicans Have Completely Abandoned Criminal Justice Reform

The Republican Party wants you to be afraid. Very, very afraid.

Under former President Donald Trump, the party is playing up fears of violent crime, even as crime rates have fallen from their pandemic-era spike. And in the process, it is abandoning the modest yet meaningful moves toward criminal justice reform it made in recent years.

This much was clear on the second night of the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC), whose theme was “Make America Safe Again.” Several of the presenters spoke of the need to get tough on crime.

“We are experiencing a plague of crime across America,” said retired police Lieutenant Randy Sutton. “It’s all made America more dangerous than ever before.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis charged that Democrats, like President Joe Biden, "have unleashed progressive prosecutors across our nation who care more about coddling criminals than about protecting their own communities.”

If Trump’s choice of running mate signaled how thoroughly he has bent the GOP’s economic policy to his will, Tuesday night at the convention provided an unfortunate indication of how thoroughly the party platform has abandoned any prospect of criminal justice reform.

Trump accepted his party’s nomination the first time, in 2016, during what he called “a moment of crisis for our nation.”

“The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life,” he warned. “Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.” He detailed frightening statistics from big cities: murder rates up 50 percent in Washington, D.C., and up 60 percent in Baltimore; more than 2,000 victims of gun violence in Chicago in the previous year alone.

“The first task for our new Administration will be to liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens their communities,” Trump pledged. “In this race for the White House, I am the Law And Order candidate.”

Trump conveyed similar fears at the 2020 convention, held amid the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide racial-justice protests. “Your vote will decide whether we protect law abiding Americans, or whether we give free reign to violent anarchists, agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens,” he said.

In each case, the message was clear: Violent criminals lurk around every corner, and only by voting Republican can we hold back the deadly hordes.

Of course, that wasn’t quite true in either year: While…