Americans are being sold a comforting lie: that our country suffers from “mass incarceration” while crime is a thing of the past. The hard truth is we still lock up well over a million people, and the conversation being driven by coastal elites ignores the rising danger felt in neighborhoods across Middle America.
When conservative voices like Senator Tom Cotton call out an “under?incarceration” problem, the left’s outraged reaction proves the point — they’d rather lecture about statistics than protect victims. This isn’t about bloodthirsty politics; it’s about commonsense public safety: criminals who know they’ll be back on the street don’t behave like reformed citizens.
Think tanks on the right are finally pushing back on the revisionist narrative that we lock up too many dangerous people. Reports debunking the myth of mass incarceration make a straightforward case: the nation has both significant violent crime and serious gaps in how we punish and incapacitate repeat violent offenders. Conservatives must stop apologizing for prioritizing safety and start arguing from facts and results.
Meanwhile, elite-backed decarceration policies — from soft plea bargains to second?look resentencings — have been sold as progressive compassion while leaving communities exposed. Organizations pushing for widespread releases argue many inmates pose little risk, but blanket policies ignore violent recidivism and the trauma of victims who are never consulted. The consequence is predictable: policy experiments on the public’s safety rarely end well.
You see the effects every day: hollowed?out storefronts, fewer police on the beat, and repeat offenders cycling through jails without real consequences. National data show uneven declines in prison population while local crime surges in places that adopted lax enforcement and early release programs. It’s not hard to connect the dots when policymakers refuse to put the safety of ordinary Americans first.
If you need proof that toughness works, look beyond our borders to nations that stopped romanticizing criminals and got serious about law and order. The dramatic drop in homicides in countries that cracked down on violent gangs shows that decisive action — not virtue signaling — saves lives and restores normalcy to public life. We should study what works, not recycle the same failed narratives.
Patriots who care about their families and neighborhoods must demand a new agenda: fund police, expand capacity for violent offenders, restore sensible sentencing for repeat violent criminals, and reject policies that put ideology above victims. The choice is stark — either let technocrats keep experimenting with our safety, or stand up for accountability, consequence, and the Rule of Law that keeps America free.
