California’s spiking violent-crime rate can be attributed to liberal district attorneys in big cities who promote a "culture of lawlessness," while Florida's "law and order" policies have yielded lower crime, according to one crime control policy expert.
"If [California] had law and order DAs, if you had a governor of California - like previous governors, including Reagan - who were pro-law enforcement, pro-law and order, and were hammering [DAs] George Gascon and Chesa Boudin and Pamela Price campaigning for law and order DA candidates, you wouldn't have the disparity between Florida and California in terms of crime rates," Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Cully Stimson told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this week.
The FBI released its annual national crime data this month, which analyzed 2022’s crime trends, and found violent incidents decreased by 1.7% last year when compared to 2021. Violent crimes are defined as incidents such as rape, robberies, armed assault and homicide.
Murders and non-negligent manslaughter, specifically, dropped 6.1% last year, while rape incidents decreased by 5.4%. The national violent crime stats for 2022 are only a fraction of a percent higher than 2019 data, showing a return to pre-pandemic crime levels.
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For California and Florida, however, the violent crime stats wildly differ from both each other and national trends, which Stimson attributed to state policies and leaders.
Violent crimes for the state of Florida fell by nearly 32% in 2022 compared to 2019, and by 23% when compared to 2021 data. California saw violent crimes spike by 13% last year compared to 2019, and by 3.8% when compared to 2021 data.
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The FBI switched to a new recording program at the start of January 2021, called the National Incident-Based Reporting System. The new reporting method was rolled out to provide a more thorough snapshot of offenses, such as what weapons were used in an incident, types of property stolen and more detailed demographic information on victims and perpetrators of crimes.
Data from 2021 was largely seen as incomplete, as only 62.7% of law enforcement departments nationwide sent reports of crime data to the FBI. The data for 2022 shows a more complete view of crime issues, with more than 83% of police departments reporting stats, which covers 93.5% of U.S. the population.
"Crime, especially violent crime, is demographically and geographically concentrated in the inner cities. That's just a fact," Stimson said. "… But to get a real sense of what's happening in a state, you have to look what's happening in your big cities in those states."
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Stimson is one of the authors behind the Heritage Foundation’s report titled, "The Blue City Murder Problem," which pushed back against the Democratic narrative that America has a "red state murder problem." The study, published last year, detailed that out of America’s top 30 cities with spiraling homicide rates, 27 were led by Democratic mayors and "at least 14 Soros-backed or Soros-inspired rogue prosecutors."
California made the list three times - Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco - for having sky-high homicide rates. Florida made one appearance on the list, with Jacksonville showing a homicide rate of 6.8 per 100,000 people, as of June of that year.
"There were 2,554 homicides in those 30 cities through June 2022. In the 14 cities with Soros-backed rogue prosecutors, there were 1,752 homicides, representing 68 percent of homicides in the 30 top homicide cities in the United States," the report found.
Los Angeles DA Gascon was backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, as well as San Francisco’s previous DA Boudin, who was recalled from office in June of last year over his soft-on-crime policies.
On the flip-side, Stimson explained, Florida has promoted law and order policies through Gov. Ron DeSantis and prosecutors.
"When you look at the crime rates in big cities in Florida and you see that unlike California, the Florida constitution empowers the governor to remove elected officials who are not fulfilling their fiduciary duties. DeSantis [got] rid of Andrew Warren and Monique Worrell, two DAs in two separate counties because they're not doing their job" he said.
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DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren in August of last year after the Tampa-area prosecutor declined to enforce several state laws, including the state’s 15-week abortion ban. He then suspended State Attorney Monique Worrell in August of this year for "neglecting her duty to faithfully prosecute crime," according to the governor’s press release. Both had previously received backing from Soros.
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"You can see why these trends are going in opposite directions," Stimson said of comparing California to Florida. "The DA is the gatekeeper to the criminal justice system … So it's important to give credit to the governors, where they create a culture of lawfulness across the state, or a culture of lawlessness."
DeSantis has notably also publicly repeated his support for police amid 2020’s calls to defund police departments that spilled into the following years. Stimson said there is no clear study showing DeSantis’ support has aided efforts to combat crime but that such comments can help bolster the culture of law and order.
"When the chief executive of a state, or country for that matter, not only creates a culture of law and order, but then backs it up by backing local law enforcement, it permeates the residents of the state, and it really forces the local DAs in the counties to do their job."
Both Gov. Gavin Newsom's office and Gascon's office pushed back that Florida's crime data only was incomplete, as only 48% of law enforcement jurisdictions reported crime data to the FBI last year. Some 98% of California police jurisdictions reported crime data to the FBI last year.
"You cannot compare the state of California with the state of Florida. California is a massive state with many District Attorneys Office. Some counties have conservative prosecutors while others have progressive prosecutors," a spokesperson for Gascon's office told Fox News Digital.
"We are a progressive prosecutors office. The Orange County DA is a Conservative. LA County saw a 8% increase in violent crime in 2022 when compared to 2019. Orange County saw a 32% increase in violent crime in 2022 compared to 2019. LA County saw a 5% increase in violent crime in 2022 compared to 2021. Orange County saw a 10% increase in violent crime in 2022 compared to 2021," the spokesperson added.
Gascon's spokesperson said that crime across the country increased in 2020 in jurisdictions with both "conservative prosecutors and jurisdictions with progressive prosecutors," and that by trying to draw a "correlation using dubious data Is irresponsible."
The governor's office added that "a person has a 126% higher chance of being murdered in Jacksonville" than San Francisco, while Gascon's spokesperson said "violent crime in Los Angeles has declined 6% compared to last year and homicides have decreased 18%."
DeSantis and Newsom are set to debate each other next month on Fox News, when the pair will likely discuss top voter concerns such as crime and the economy.
