Data Shows ‘Progressive’ Prosecution Policies Don’t Lead To Higher Crime Rates

Donald Trump and the politicians that either think like him, or think saying things like this might make him like them, continue to pretend major US cities are besieged by violent criminals. While there have been a few spikes in certain cities, for the most part, crime rates are returning to their normal, historic lows following aberrations generated by the once-in-a-lifetime worldwide pandemic.

These politicians don’t have the facts on their side. Fortunately for them, many of their supporters are way less interested in facts than they are in feelings, especially the feeling that anyone described as “progressive” is anti-American and that pretty much all crime in the US can be traced back to (1) minorities or (2) undocumented immigrants. These are the people who claim “facts don’t care about your feelings,” but when it comes to facts they don’t care for, they’re more than willing to let their feelings take control of the conversation.

They’re wrong in every case. And this report, compiled by the Brennan Center, isn’t going to change their minds. But for those of us who still care about facts, here’s another set of data points that makes it clear “progressive” prosecution policies neither hamstring police nor embolden criminals.

Previous research on this subject has, with some exceptions, found little to no relationship between the inauguration of a pro-reform prosecutor and a measurable increase in crime, even after using sophisticated statistical strategies.

Our analysis, described below, also finds no clear relationship between the pro-reform prosecutorial approach and the incidence of crime. Using data collected by the Council on Criminal Justice, we compared aggravated assault, larceny, and homicide trends in cities with pro-reform prosecutors to trends in cities without pro-reform prosecutors. Assault and larceny were selected because of their frequency, allowing clearer analysis, and because they are more likely to be affected by prosecutorial decision-making. Murder was chosen because of its seriousness and because those crimes spiked sharply during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In terms of homicide rates, the data shows that if there’s any difference between progressive and “regular” prosecutors, it’s that cities with “progressive” prosecutors are seeing fewer homicides.

The Brennan Center freely admits it’s working with limited data — not because there isn’t a wealth of crime data available, but because the number of cities with “progressive prosecutors” (itself a term open to some interpretation) is extremely low in comparison to the number of cities overseen by prosecutors no one has ever labeled “progressive,” if they’ve ever bothered to label them at all.

Even when the contrast isn’t nearly as stark as it is in the homicide numbers, the data shows that, at worst, “progressive” prosecutors and policies aren’t resulting in abnormally high crime rates in comparison to other, less-progressive cities.

So, are these reform-minded prosecutors better or worse for large cities? The answer likely depends on far more than aggregate crime data. But what data is available shows some progressive prosecutors are presiding over some pretty impressive crime rate decreases, despite the vociferous protestations by those who believe any mild criminal justice reform must be to blame for whatever recent criminal act they saw covered on the evening news, or its nearest social media equivalent, Facebook.

Notably, the graphs show that crime trends in pro-reform prosecutor jurisdictions largely match those in their comparison groups. Where they do not match, they indicate lower crime rates in cities with pro-reform prosecutors. That is not what we would expect to see if, as some critics claim, jurisdictions with pro-reform prosecutors experience rising or higher crime. In Los Angeles, a pandemic-era rise and plateau in aggravated assault rates is mirrored by trends in the comparison group of cities — both before and after the inauguration of pro-reform prosecutor George Gascón. In Austin, the decline in larceny rates overseen by José Garza, another district attorney elected on a reform platform, outpaces that of the comparison group. And assault trends in Boston are particularly notable. Aggravated assault rates began to decline sharply in the first year of then–District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s administration and have remained significantly below 2018 rates since then, even after Rollins’s departure in 2022. No other city or combination of cities in our sample could match Boston’s steep drop in aggravated assaults.

Correlation is not causation and all of that, but what the Brennan Center points out is that progressive prosecution policies — like not spending time arresting and prosecuting people for low-level offenses like minor drug possession, unpaid tolls/parking tickets, and non-violent misdemeanors — has freed up prosecutors, police officers, and investigators to spend more time dealing with more serious and violent criminal acts. And that alone might explain why violent crime rates continue to drop in areas where prosecutorial discretion, diversion programs, and not turning local jails into debtors’ prisons have actually prioritized tackling the sort of crime most people think law enforcement should be focusing its resources on.

Like I said, this data won’t stop Trump and others from pretending any “liberal” city is crime-ridden wasteland. But it still matters for the rest of us, including those who live in these cities, who might be experiencing new historic lows in violent crime, even if they don’t actually agree with the prosecutorial policies currently in place.