The Hidden Politics of Disorder

During the pandemic, there was a rise in violent crime. But by 2023, violent crime was near its lowest level in over 50 years. But that year, Gallup found that 77 percent of Americans said they believed that crime was increasing. I hear that in my everyday life. People talk to me about their sense that where they live is less safe, and they’re mad about it. This was constant when I lived in San Francisco. It’s constant in New York, where I live now.

I have met people in New York who aren’t very political, but they vote. They’ve always voted for Democrats, and now they’re leaning toward Republicans on this issue alone. And you can see that nationally. Democrats feel they have a problem when it comes to crime. In 2020 the party was running on criminal justice reform. Now Kamala Harris talks about herself as California’s top law enforcement official.

At the same time, Democrats I know are frustrated. Violent crime is down, not up. Why won’t people look at the numbers? It’s begun to remind me of the economic debates over much of the past year. On the most important data, the economy looks good. But people are angry. You can say the people are wrong, or you can ask what the data is missing.

I think there is something missing in the violent crime data. That thing is disorder. Charles Fein Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute who studies crime and drug policy, wrote a piece in his newsletter, The Causal Fallacy, about exactly this question. So I asked him on the show to talk about it.

This is an edited excerpt from our conversation for my podcast. For the full conversation, listen to “The Ezra Klein Show.”

The Hidden Politics of Disorder

The crime researcher Charles Fain Lehman discusses why people feel unsafe, even as violent crime rates have dropped.