During Monday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki dodged questions on the reasons for the nationwide rise in violent crime.
“Do you think it’s possible that these cities are dealing with these smash and grab robberies right now, an increase in criminal activity, because some prosecutors are too soft on crime?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked.
“I would say we have seen, I’m not going to attribute the reasoning from here, what I will tell you is we have seen an increase in crime over the course of the pandemic,” Psaki responded. “There are a range of reasons for that. And what our focus is on is what we can do to address it. The President has proposed additional funding in the budget to make sure local police departments and cops have the funding they need. We have also worked directly with police departments in areas where they are seeing the highest impact of the crime, the retail theft, which we have great concern about. That’s what our focus is on currently, is action, and doing what we can to make sure the funding is out there to the communities that need it the most.”
“What good does it do if you’re going to give police departments extra money, if they arrest bad guys, and they bring them to jail, and then they’re not prosecuted?” Doocy asked. “They’re just right back out on the streets.”
“What our focus is on is making sure that the local leaders, the police officers and departments who know what they need for these communities have the assistance and the funding they need,” Psaki said. “And that’s what we’re working around the clock on.”
Many cities underwent their most violent years on record in 2021, a continuation of a spike in violent crime that began amid protests against police in 2020.
“More than two-thirds of the country’s most populous cities have seen more homicides in 2021 than last year, a continuation of the troubling increase in homicides that began at the onset of the pandemic in 2020,” CNN reported, adding, “At least nine major cities have broken their previous annual homicide records with about three weeks left to go in 2021. There have been 513 homicides this year in Philadelphia, higher than the previous total of 503 in 1990. There have been 230 homicides in Indianapolis, breaking the previous record of 215 set just last year.”
