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The results are in: Tough-on-crime works, rogue prosecutors don’t

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by Zack Smith, opinion contributor - 04/10/26 7:30 AM ET

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by Zack Smith, opinion contributor - 04/10/26 7:30 AM ET

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AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro

In the world of criminal justice reform, it became more popular for a time to claim that crime can be eradicated without punishment — that we don’t need police, we don’t need common-sense prosecutors or judges to hold violent and career criminals accountable.

It’s just not true. As we have seen again and again, crime and consequences meted out to criminals are inextricably intertwined.

When progressive politicians defunded police departments and progressive prosecutors refused to prosecute entire categories of crimes, crime rates — particularly violent crime rates — exploded.

Look at what happened in our nation’s capital. During the Biden administration, the perfect storm percolated to cause a crime catastrophe.

First, local elected leaders moved aggressively to defund the police. One D.C. city council member, Charles Allen, boasted that budget cuts to the police department would result in “the biggest reduction … I’ve ever seen.” He openly bragged that this would make the District more just, although he admitted that “racial justice won’t be achieved in a single budget.” Never mind that young black men are vastly disproportionately victimized by violent crime. For many radical self-styled reformers like Allen, the system is the problem, not the crime.

Next, the Biden-appointed U.S. attorney — the official who prosecutes most local crimes in the District of Columbia — effectively adopted many of the fashionable soft-on-crime policies that other rogue progressive prosecutors had been supporting. And the District’s locally elected city attorney, who prosecutes most juvenile crimes in Washington, declared that he would never prosecute a juvenile offender as an adult, no matter how heinous his or her crime. In his view, “Kids are kids.”

Guess what happened? Murders soared in D.C. In 2012, the District had experienced a 49-year low of 88 murders. By 2023, it was experiencing a 25-year high of 274 murders. Carjacking, a relatively rare crime as recently as 2019 at 152 cases, spiked to 957 cases in 2023 — an increase of more than 500 percent.

Then a new administration came to town. The approach changed — and so did the results.

In 2025, the District’s murder count plunged to 127. So far this year, there have been only 12 murders in D.C. — a dramatic 68 percent decrease from this time last year. That puts the District on pace for only about 42 murders this year — apparently the lowest since at least 1930 and possibly much earlier.

Carjackings also plunged in 2025 to a still-high but much better 250. So far in 2026, there have been only 37 carjackings reported (down by 44 percent year over year), with only 22 of them involving guns (down by 56 percent).

So, what led to these dramatic decreases? The answer is not complicated: Increased policing and prosecution.

With the local D.C. police force facing a historic staffing shortage at the beginning of 2025 — a 50-year low in terms of sworn officers, thanks in large part to the above-mentioned budget cuts — President Trump deployed the National Guard and redirected federal law enforcement resources to D.C. Although the National Guard deployment is not a permanent solution, it did ameliorate the immediate manpower shortage, which some estimate will take at least a decade to fix completely.

Trump also appointed a new U.S. Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, to serve as the District’s top prosecutor. She immediately made clear she would bring appropriate charges against criminals and seek appropriately tough sentences — up to and including the death penalty.

Contrast Pirro’s resolve to keep the public safe against all those stories we keep hearing of prosecutors in various places showing leniency toward criminals with dozens of arrests, who eventually go on to maim or kill someone — to the surprise of absolutely no one.

Just as D.C. is finally doing what it takes to reduce violent crime, so is Memphis, one of America’s most violent big cities. A state-federal partnership has pushed violent crime in that city down to levels not seen in many years. Last year, murders were down 50 percent from their 2023 high of 400. This year, the city is on pace for an even lower tally.

Even voters in some of the most left-wing jurisdictions in America have recognized the folly of their elected leaders’ soft-on-crime policies. Voters in San Francisco recalled and