The Trump administration’s recent deployment of National Guard troops and federal resources to major U.S. cities reflects a growing majority of Americans who are fed up with inaction on public safety. After years of unchecked violence and open-air drug use, many see these moves not as overreach but as long overdue.
Fueling much of this primordial decay is a Fentanyl epidemic, which is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. Meanwhile, other rampant street drugs like meth and bath salts are inducing or worsening levels of psychosis, unlike anything in history. The result has been broken people, broken homes, broken cities, and unspeakable violence. Tents and waste sprawl across once beautiful urban centers while needles litter children’s playgrounds, and women avoid pumping their own gas after dark.
The United States’ rate of violent crime, such as rape, robbery, and assault, is nearly three times higher than Europe’s. And the homicide rate? That’s seven times higher. Worse still, an alarming number of these crimes are perpetrated by repeat offenders. Our criminal justice system is failing to carry out the duties of its most basic requirement: to protect the public from career criminals. A quick glance at any morning paper on any given day in any city across America will tell the story.
In Charlotte, NC, Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska survived war only to be brutally stabbed to death on a train by a career criminal who never should have been free. The video of this horrific tragedy plays back in our nightmares over and again. We have seen enough.
The Cicero Institute’s new national poll puts numbers to this sadness and frustration:
82% support life in prison or the death penalty for aggravated murder, even when mental illness is involved.
63% want lenient judges removed from the bench.
75% support electronically monitoring transient sex offenders.
60% want automatic federal investigations into states that repeatedly release violent criminals, something the White House is already looking into.
But nothing captures the stakes more vividly than the testimonies of those who have to live with the consequences of failed policy. Stephen Federico, father of 22-year-old Logan Federico, gave emotional testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee in Charlotte. He recounted how his daughter was “executed … on her knees begging for her life … begging for her hero, her father. Me. And I could not protect her.” He did not lean on political ideology. He called out a broken system that allowed a man with at least 39 arrests and 25 felonies to remain on the streets, serving little time despite a decade of violent and property crime. “There is only one thing that would have kept my daughter alive,” he said. “Putting a career criminal in prison.”
And if you think it ends there, it doesn’t.
In Kentucky, the anguish of one father has come to embody a nation’s rage. Years after his six-year-old little boy was stabbed to death by a man deemed “criminally insane,” that man was granted parole “good behavior.” Dean Tipton has vowed that if the system will not deliver justice for his son, he will. His words are not a threat born of malice, but of despair. Thankfully, proactive law enforcement officials in Florida picked up the murderer on a parole violation, sparing Mr. Tipton further trauma.
But Americans should not have to wait for a technicality to get violent predators off the street. The voice of America is saying, “Enough.”
While we face rising crime, record overdose deaths, and exploding homelessness, bickering and posturing dominate from the local to the federal level by those who are content with the status quo of death, disease, and despair. The average family does not care about partisan brinkmanship. They care about being safe in their own neighborhoods.
In Athens, GA, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was dragged off her morning jog, beaten, and murdered by an illegal alien who had already been arrested in the U.S. and released back onto our streets. This was not an accident or a tragedy of circumstance. It was the predictable result of a government that refuses to protect its citizens, releasing violent men again and again until they finally kill one of our daughters. Riley’s blood, like Iryna’s and Logan’s, cries out against a broken system that values ideology and excuses over human life.
Yet instead of focusing on these failures, Leftists consumed by political theater are eager to offer aid to our enemy rather than save our cities from this terror. America is not asking for cruelty but for safety. Voters are not asking the government to shrug at addiction or mental illness. They want public spaces reclaimed for families and small businesses, not surrendered to chaos.
That is what the poll numbers capture: a public demand for strong consequences that bring peace to our streets. People want dangerous offenders confined and controlled, drug dealers punished, transient sex offenders tracked, and public spaces cleared of disorder.
The new federal deployments mark a turning point. From state houses to our national capital, citizens are signaling to their elected officials that the duty of government is to protect them. And if current leaders cannot find the gumption to deliver security and justice, they should resign and make way for those who will.
Americans have seen enough. The public’s patience has expired. They are eager to support leaders who will match words with courageous action.
Stefani E. Buhajla is a pollster, political strategist, and Sr. Director of Communications at the Cicero Institute.
A new national poll reveals a broad, cross-partisan consensus among Americans for accountability-driven reforms to address rising crime, homelessness, and judicial leniency.
With violent crime perceived as increasing by 75% of respondents, majorities support stricter sentencing, enhanced monitoring technologies, federal oversight of repeat offender states, and responsibility requirements in public assistance programs. The Cicero Institute National Crime Poll surveyed a representative sample of 2,102 U.S. voters, showing a unified public mandate that compassion must be paired with consequences to restore safety and order in communities nationwide.
“Americans are crying out for accountability,” said Stefani E. Buhajla, Senior Director of Communications at the Cicero Institute. “Across the nation, families are watching their neighborhoods decline under the weight of unchecked crime, drug abuse, and untreated mental illness. Homelessness has exploded into public view, violent criminals cycle endlessly through the courts, and too many judges seem more interested in appeasing activists than protecting the people they serve. The result is predictable: citizens feel less safe, less secure, and less confident in the institutions charged with delivering justice.”
Crime and Public Safety
63% support increasing criminal penalties for drug trafficking around homelessness charity facilities, recognizing the exploitation of vulnerable individuals battling addictions.
75% support providing law enforcement with better technology to track transient sex offenders.
75% support electronic monitoring of transient sex offenders’ whereabouts, with 68% more likely to support if informed that over half of transients are registered sex offenders.
Violent Crime and Mental Health
75% believe violent crime is increasing or staying the same.
61% support court-ordered treatment and stabilization for repeat criminals with mental illness.
64% support making it easier to commit individuals with violent tendencies to mental health facilities.
In cases of aggravated murder by mentally ill offenders, 82% back life in prison, the death penalty, or both (46% life in prison, 18% death penalty, 18% both).
60% favor an automatic federal investigation into states with histories of releasing repeat violent criminals.
63% support removing judges with patterns of leniency toward repeat violent criminals.
Homelessness
64% say homeless individuals should be required to participate in addiction, mental health treatment, and job training as a condition of taxpayer-funded housing.
64% oppose allowing homeless individuals to camp on public property.
75% view moving homeless individuals to shelters as more compassionate than unrestricted camping.
70% support temporary structured camping areas with water, sanitation, and police services—located away from residential and business zones—when shelters are unavailable.
Juvenile Justice
73% support shorter probation terms for low-risk juvenile offenders who complete education or job training.
66% support reduced probation for those pursuing mental health counseling or drug treatment programs.
“What we see here is not a thirst for cruelty, but a yearning for justice,” added Buhajla. “Americans want accountability because they know compassion without order collapses into chaos. They understand that responsibility and opportunity must go hand in hand. And they are calling on leaders to have the courage to enforce laws, protect communities, and demand more from the very institutions that too often excuse failure.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
A recent report has identified the five safest cities in Arizona and also noted a significant drop in violent crime experiences as well as a slight decrease in property crime experiences.
The report from Safewise found the ten safest cities in Arizona are (ranked order): Oro Valley, Queen Creek, Gilbert, Sahuarita, Surprise, Buckeye, Maricopa, Marana, Chandler, and Prescott Valley. Twenty-five cities in total were ranked.
The five lowest ranked were Apache Junction, Avondale, Casa Grande, Glendale, and Tempe. For comparison: the violent crime reported per 1,000 people in Oro Valley was 0.55 and property crimes per 1,000 people were 11.51. Tempe with over quadruple the population has 5.2 violent crimes per 1,000 people and 36.13 property crimes per 1,000 people.
Zeroing in on the reports findings, SafeWise found that the five safest cities collective violent crime rate is 1.0 incidents per 1,000 people while property crime was 10.4 incidents per 1,000 people. The report also found that the number of Arizonans surveyed who said they feel safe jumped up 5% from 36% to 41%.
SafeWise Managing Editor and Safety Expert, Rebecca Edwards said in a statement, “Violent crime experiences are trending down across Arizona, and mass shootings dropped by more than 60% year over year—from eight in 2023 to just three in 2024. Cities like Queen Creek and Surprise saw decreases in both violent and property crime, showing that safety is improving for many Arizona communities.”
According to the report, although 63% of Arizonans surveyed were concerned about property crime on a daily basis, personal experiences with property crime dropped year over year with just 26% of respondents reporting a personal experience with property crime in the past year.
Arizonans are also ranked third for adopting the use of security cameras for their homes, following Delaware and Louisiana. As a matter of preference most Arizonans surveyed, 59%, preferred security cameras or guard dogs, 44%.
Overall, Arizona respondents were most concerned over violent crime, although violent crime experiences fell from 19% to 11% year over year.
Approximately 14% of Arizonans polled reported carrying a firearm for personal protection and 33% reportedly own one for property protection. Incongruently, the number concerned about gun violence increased from 58% to 67% despite a decrease in mass-shootings.
According to SafeWise, the report was generated from “voluntary, self-reported information that cities and jurisdictions across the country report through the FBI Summary Reporting System (SRS) and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). For our 2025 reporting year, the most recent FBI data was released in October 2024 for crimes reported in 2023.” The company’s full report and methodology is available here.
Federal bureaucrats don’t get a lot of love, but there is at least one — or perhaps a small group — at the FBI who deserve your thanks. Why? Did you see the story about the FBI revising its crime data?
The FBI’s original release of 2022 crime statistics showed a 2.1% decline in violent crime when compared to 2021. This figure never seemed right and was widely questioned, but FBI data is presumed authoritative. Former President Donald Trump often insists crime is rising and the legacy media delighted in throwing the FBI figures back at him.
Whoops. The FBI very quietly released a correction. Crime didn’t fall 2.1%. Violent crime actually rose 4.5%. That’s right, crime rose, just as Trump said. Further, the combined correction of nearly 7%, reversing a 2.1% decline to a 4.5% increase is too large just to be passed off as simple error. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (Hamlet, Act I, Scene IV).”
Quite properly, most of the attention given to this bombshell is directed at the rise in crime, the validation of Trump’s claims and the perfidy of the FBI.
Consider that last item. The FBI is vital to national security, yet its leadership down through a few layers of the org chart have been revealed repeatedly as bad. They see what’s going on around the country. They see the crime, yet they allowed that obviously flawed report to go out knowing it would benefit whoever became the Democratic nominee.
If Trump wins, then it is time for the trash to meet the broom.
But there’s another aspect of this story. The corrected figures showing a rise in crime came out just a few weeks before the election, hitting the Harris campaign with yet another mighty gut punch. The FBI could have waited until after the election. Heck, they could have waited until next year.
How did this happen? How did the new truth get past FBI leadership?
Somewhere some likely lifer FBI bureaucrat must have learned the truth. Knowing it would surely destroy their career this person may have told their superiors that if the report weren’t revised and released, if the truth didn’t come out through official channels, then they would go to the press with the correct data and the coverup.
Our hero was likely called to multiple meetings by ever-higher-ups to persuade, dissuade and threaten him or her into getting in line. They would have heard variations of “This isn’t how we do things at the FBI” and “This will destroy your career,” and “By the way, how do your kids like Springfield Elementary?”
Plenty of federal bureaucrats are lazy and useless. Sometimes they are in positions where there is just nothing to do and sometimes they are malicious.
It is a big government. There are bad apples in every barrel. As my former boss used to say: “Bureaucrats are like cockroaches. The trouble is not what they eat, but what they get into.”
But there are also plenty of fine professionals just trying to do a good job often in impossible conditions. They can be found in every department, agency and bureau. I’ve even met them at the Internal Revenue Service, good people struggling to make an incredibly bad system work.
One of those fine professionals is apparently at the FBI. A dedicated stalwart who wouldn’t be bullied, wouldn’t remain silent, who forced the FBI to release the corrected crime statistics before the election. We will likely never know who this person is.
But tonight, when hefting a pint or saying your prayers, speak a few words of thanks that we have such people.
J.D. Foster is a contributor to the Daily Caller News Foundation. He is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.
The latest Phoenix Police Department (PPD) data indicates that violent crime has increased while property crimes have decreased from last year.
There was an average increase of over 2 percent for violent crimes, and 3 percent decrease for property crimes. Below are the overall crimes year to date, comparing last January to July to this January to July.
According to separate PPD data, there’s also been a decrease in bias crimes from last year. Last January through August, there were 116 crimes motivated by bias. This year, there have only been 13 in total from January through March.
The drop in bias-motivated crimes has been consistent since 2020, when there was a peak of 204 bias-motivated crimes that year. The greatest number of bias-motivated crimes occurred in 2017, reaching a total of 230.
The rise in crime accompanies PPD’s staffing shortages. On Wednesday, the Phoenix City Council discussed the PPD’s efforts to increase hiring. PPD affirmed that they continue to experience net losses: more officers retiring or resigning than being hired.
Currently, PPD has about 2,600 sworn field positions, 80 in academy, 1,000 working and patrolling officers, 20 in training, and 80 in transitional duty assignment. Current retirements and resignations this year are just under 200. Last year, there were 275 retirements and resignations.
However, PPD Assistant Chief of Police Bryan Chapman said that PPD expected to see a turnaround in the near future.
“If you look at a year ago in terms of where we are today, we are in a much better position. Next year we’ll be back to some normalized numbers or an even better position than where we are,” Chapman.
Officer shortage last year resulted in PPD not responding to certain 911 calls.
Watch the Phoenix City Council policy meeting on public safety and justice below:
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
