POMPEO: Violent Crime is a National Crisis

Lately, it feels as though every day brings a new report of a horrific crime committed somewhere in our great nation. In just the last week, we saw deadly attacks on an ICE facility in Texas and an LDS Church in Michigan. These attacks came on the heels of the very public assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the horrific killing spree at a Minneapolis Catholic school that claimed the lives of two children, and the now infamous stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For all that is going in the right direction in this country, there is a palpable sense of unease – even darkness – that seems to be at large. Whether it's the lionization of political assassinations or the normalization of random acts of violence, there are definite echoes of the lawlessness that reigned during the 1960s and 1970s. And while the spike in homicide rates and violent crime that began in 2020 has gone down, it has by no means returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Failed progressive policies deserve much of the blame. Left-wing politicians have convinced themselves that greater compassion for the criminals is the only way to address the root causes of crime. In practice, that has meant declining to prosecute dangerous individuals and repeat offenders, disempowering police, and making it almost impossible to commit individuals with dangerous mental illness to the psychiatric care they need to keep themselves and others safe.

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To make things worse, progressives continue to demonize law enforcement. From the “defund the police” movement that accompanied the riots of 2020 to the rhetorical attacks on ICE as they attempt to enforce immigration law, the Left is undermining law enforcement and encouraging further acts of violence. 

In so many of these cases, we see vague calls for social justice replacing any kind of accountability for keeping the public safe. We’re told we can never “arrest our way out” of criminality, when the evidence suggests the precise opposite: Violent crime only goes down when the perpetrators are incarcerated, and when the severely mentally ill are given the help they need to protect themselves and others. The American people know this and overwhelmingly support a tough-on-crime approach.

While policy changes are essential to combating this problem, there’s a deeper soul-sickness at play in American society that won’t be as easy to address. As much of our nation has turned away from religion, we’ve lost the moral compass that goes with it. The unprecedented phenomenon of spending so much of our lives online – exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – has had a flattening effect on the way many people view their fellow Americans. And the collapse of trust in institutions has opened up new spaces for conspiracy theories to take root – causes eagerly adopted by evil actors and the mentally unwell.

As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When elected officials coddle criminals and refuse to protect law-abiding citizens, they fail to uphold the most basic obligations of governance and put us all in danger. When lawlessness is given free rein, it corrodes our social fabric and contributes to a wider sense of disorder, distrust, and moral rot. And when our society turns its back on God and reduces human beings to mere representations of a political, ethnic, or a social category, we open up new opportunities for malevolence to run riot.

I pray that the recent tragedies we have experienced will galvanize citizens to demand accountability from elected officials on violent crime and set us on a better course – and more than anything, I pray for the victims whose lives were stolen from them, and for the families left behind.