CRIMEEven Blue States Are Embracing a Tougher Approach to Crime

By Amanda Hernández

The outcomes of seven ballot measures in Arizona, California and Colorado reflect the stricter approach to crime that’s been seen across much of the country recently, with voters and policymakers driven by concerns over rising retail theft, homelessness, fentanyl misuse and challenges in police recruitment and retention.

Voters have decided in recent years that they prefer to adopt progressive changes to the criminal justice system “somewhat less aggressively,” said Dan Schnur, a former Republican strategist and a political communications professor at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.

“Voters are always course correctors. They’re always adjusting and readjusting, trying to calibrate policy exactly the way they want it,” Schnur said. “It’s not uncommon for them to try to pull back on a reform effort that they think might be going too far.”

This year, local and state leaders in blue and red states — including California, Georgia, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont — shifted away from more liberal initiatives aimed at reining in police powers and reimagining criminal legal systems. They have instead embraced harsher penalties for offenses such as retail theft and possession or distribution of certain hard drugs, added more felony and misdemeanor offenses requiring cash bail, and moved to prohibit local governments from altering police traffic stop policies.

Then this month, voters in Arizona, California and Colorado overwhelmingly backed ballot measures to increase prison time for certain crimes, revoke bail for others and crack down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

While national crime data is notoriously difficult to track and understand, violent crime and property crime across the United States decreased in 2023, continuing a downward trend since the higher crime rates of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the FBI’s latest national crime report. Still, some individual cities and neighborhoods might be seeing higher crime rates, which could explain Americans’ views on the issue.

Opinions on crime in the United States have improved over the past year, according to Gallup’s annual crime survey. Fewer people compared with last year believe national crime has increased or consider crime an “extremely” or “very” serious problem — but a majority of U.S. adults, 56%, still do.

Perceptions are heavily influenced by political affiliation, the survey showed. While 60% of Democrats believe crime has gone down over the past year, 90% of Republicans think it has increased.

Rethinking theft and drug crimes

In California, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, a measure that increases penalties for specific