2024 Is Shaping Up to Be a “Tough vs. Tougher on Crime” Campaign

In some ways, 2024 has already been an uncommon presidential marketing campaign. Past the Biden-Harris swap, the coverage panorama is defying the anticipated configuration.

One of many locations that’s most obvious is within the space of crime and felony justice. It now appears to be like like we’re in for 2 months of a contest to point out whether or not Donald Trump or Kamala Harris can be robust or more durable on crime.

For greater than the final half-century, the same old sample of our presidential campaigns has had one social gathering, the Republicans, to pose as a law-and-order social gathering and accuse the opposite of being comfortable on crime. The Democrats have largely eschewed the tough-on-crime technique.

Not a lot this 12 months.

Whereas former President Trump and his MAGA allies are doubling down on the law-and-order themes which have served Republican candidates for president nicely since 1968, the Democrats, having nominated a former prosecutor to be their normal bearer, appear decided to not concede the tough-on-crime terrain to them.

The dilemma for Vice President Harris and the Democrats is to keep away from saying something in regards to the crime problem throughout the marketing campaign that can inhibit their capacity to be credible spokespeople for felony justice reform in the event that they take energy subsequent January. The felony justice reform agenda that awaits them is sort of substantial.

It consists of coping with issues in American policing, repealing necessary minimal sentences, addressing our nonetheless nice reliance on incarceration, and ending the demise penalty, to call just some issues.

Sounding robust on crime whereas nonetheless leaving room for maneuvering will probably be a tough act for Vice President Harris to drag off. She should clarify, as she as soon as put it, that one of the best ways to be robust on crime is to be “good on crime.”

As anybody following her marketing campaign is aware of, Harris has put her crime-fighting credentials entrance and middle in her presidential marketing campaign. Over the past month, as she launched herself to the American folks, she has repeatedly used the identical tagline. “Earlier than I used to be elected as vp, I used to be elected as United States senator, I used to be the elected legal professional normal… of California. And earlier than that, I used to be a courtroom prosecutor.”

“In these roles,” she continues, “I took on perpetrators of all types—predators who abused ladies, fraudsters who ripped off customers, cheaters who broke the foundations for their very own achieve. So, hear me once I say: I do know Donald Trump’s sort.”

In her acceptance speech finally week’s Democratic Nationwide Conference, Harris once more highlighted her background as a prosecutor. She defined that one of many causes she turned a prosecutor was due to the expertise of one in every of her mates, named Wanda, who had been sexually abused as a youngster.

“I turned a prosecutor,” Harris defined, “To guard folks like Wanda. As a result of I consider everybody has a proper: To security. To dignity. And to justice.“ Harris reminded her viewers that “As a prosecutor, once I had a case, I charged it not within the identify of the sufferer. However within the identify of ‘The Individuals.’”

She argued that “In our system of justice, a hurt towards any one in every of us is a hurt towards all of us.” Nobody, she stated, “ought to be made to battle alone. We’re all on this collectively. Every single day within the courtroom, I stood proudly earlier than a choose and stated 5 phrases: ‘Kamala Harris, for the Individuals.’”

Later in her speech, she supplied one other glimpse of her tough-on-crime credentials.

She invited her listeners to take a look at her document, not simply her rhetoric. “As a younger courtroom prosecutor in Oakland, I stood up for ladies and youngsters towards predators who abused them. As Legal professional Common of California, I took on the Huge Banks. Delivered $20 billion for middle-class households who confronted foreclosures. And helped go a House owner Invoice of Rights—one of many first of its form.”

She listed her work in standing up “For veterans and college students being scammed by Huge for-Revenue schools. For employees who have been being cheated out of the wages they have been due. For seniors dealing with elder abuse.” She touted her document going after “cartels who site visitors in weapons, medication, and human beings who threaten the safety of our border and the security of our communities.”

Nevertheless, nowhere in her acceptance speech or in her marketing campaign appearances has Vice President Harris made particular guarantees about how she would deal with the felony justice reform agenda that awaits her.

Harris’ dedication to not be outflanked from the precise on the crime problem marks a stark departure from her method when she ran for president 4 years in the past. At the moment, because the New York Instances notes, “She referred to as herself a progressive prosecutor and proposed to finish the demise penalty, necessary minimal sentences and money bail.”

What Time calls the “pivot from Harris’ earlier efforts to downplay her prosecutorial document highlights a broader shift inside the Democratic Occasion” and an “altered the political panorama” by which Harris’s background in regulation enforcement is “extra palatable to a broader voters.”

However as she tries to navigate the altered political panorama on crime and felony justice, Harris should keep away from taking Donald Trump’s bait on the crime problem. She should work exhausting to keep away from turning the 2024 marketing campaign right into a contest to point out whose method to crime is probably the most excessive.

And there will probably be loads of bait for her to keep away from taking.

For instance, on Friday, after the completion of the Democratic Nationwide Conference, the Trump marketing campaign posted the next: Kamala is DESPERATE!—Violent crime isn’t ‘down,’ it’s up virtually 25% throughout 66 main U.S. cities whereas Kamala has presided over three of the 4 most murderous years within the final 25 years.”

“Below Kamala,” it claimed, “illegals she let into the nation are brutally raping and murdering our residents.—As DA, Kamala was identified for being comfortable on crime, whereas San Francisco had the very best homicide fee in a decade as Kamala turned the ‘mannequin’ for Soros-backed prosecutors throughout the nation.—Drug cartels haven’t been ‘shut down,’ they’ve ravaged our communities with lethal medication flowing throughout the border in unprecedented numbers.”

Sooner or later later, Trump himself stated, “Kamala Harris is the Weakest Presidential Candidate in Historical past on Crime.” Echoing these themes, JD Vance used an look in Wisconsin to remind his listeners that Harris is on document as eager to defund the police. He repeated the tried-and-true Republican line, accusing her of not “backing the blue” and being comfortable on crime.

At this level, it isn’t clear how essential the crime problem will probably be when folks go to the polls or whether or not it’ll transfer unbiased voters somehow.

A Gallup survey taken final November discovered that whereas “Sixty-three p.c of People describe(d) the crime drawback within the U.S. as both extraordinarily or very critical, up from 54% when final measured in 2021…far fewer, 17%, say the crime drawback of their native space is extraordinarily or very critical.”

Furthermore, Gallup notes that solely “3% identify it because the most essential problem dealing with the nation.” That pales compared to 1994, “when a median of 42% of People…named crime as crucial drawback dealing with the U.S., making it the highest general drawback that 12 months…. Crime stayed a outstanding problem in ensuing years, with at least 10% mentioning it between 1995 and mid-2000.”

Different polls present that almost all People now choose to give attention to crime prevention quite than harsh punishment. “A prevention-first method to security, which includes absolutely funding issues which can be confirmed to create secure communities and enhance folks’s high quality of life, like good colleges, a dwelling wage, and inexpensive housing” was extra common than conventional tough-on-crime insurance policies.

Youthful voters are “particularly more likely to assist candidates who favor crime prevention techniques….” And whereas Black and Latino voters say that crime is a giant drawback the place they dwell, “The vast majority of these similar voters usually tend to choose ‘crime prevention’ methods over ‘robust on crime’ insurance policies.”

Kamala Harris appears uniquely certified to know and reply to the crime drawback in methods that don’t merely reiterate the drained options that haven’t labored up to now. She can also use her credibility as a former prosecutor to prepared the ground in preventing crime by addressing its causes.

Because the 2024 marketing campaign goes on, Harris can have a chance to point out that she might be robust on crime, however not on Donald Trump and JD Vance’s phrases.