Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) raised concerns about rising violent crime that is coinciding with Democrats pushing to defund the police. Rep. Jordan also pointed out the potential danger in blanket releasing prisoners regardless of crime.
Rep. Jim Jordan asked the Director of the U.S. Marshall Service, “Director Washington, has violent crime increased this year in major urban areas?”
Director Washington answered, “The data indicates it has increased.”
Rep. Jordan started with the data, “Aggravated assaults up 14 percent, homicide rates up 53 percent in major urban areas. In that environment, should big cities be defunding their police? New York City’s defunded their police a billion dollars. Los Angeles, one hundred and fifty million reduction in police force and police budget. Austin, Texas, one hundred fifty million. San Francisco, one hundred twenty million. Philadelphia thirty-three million. Baltimore twenty-three million. Portland, Oregon, 16 million. Does that make sense to you, Director Washington?”
Director Washington responded, “Not to me. As the head of the law enforcement agency that is charged with handling violent crime. And in fact, in many of those cities, of course, we’ve deployed deputy US Marshals to participate on various task forces to address the increase in violent crime.”
Rep. Jordan then continued with another question, “And that overall environment, the increase in violent crime, cities defunding their police department. Should we be releasing more criminals early back into those neighborhoods?”
The director answered, “I don’t think we should, Congressman.”
Rep. Jordan recalled, “Back in March, [Democrats] said assess all prisoners for release, regardless of the type of institution in which they’re housed. Here’s the key part. ‘Regardless of the seriousness of their offense or the potential recidivism risk that they pose to the community.”
Jordan continued, “So they wanted everyone to get released in an environment where we already have a fifty three percent increase in homicide rates, a 14 percent increase in aggravated assaults and big city mayors and big city city councils, all run by Democrats, are defunding the police department.”
Representative Jordan slammed Democrat-crafted legislation that incentivizes cities to release prisoners early. Jordan also revealed that 15% of federal prisoners are undocumented aliens or non-U.S. citizens.
Jordan stated, “They not only want to release criminals back into communities where there’s already an elevated state of violent crime, where the police are being defunded, they not only want to release people early, regardless of the seriousness of their offense, they want the taxpayers to pay for it. I forgot about that. They introduced legislation that said we want to pay states to do what I just described. Such a deal for the taxpayer!”
Rep. Jordan continued, “Now think about the small business owner in Portland, for example, you got a small business owner in Portland who’s paid all their local taxes only to have their business in downtown Portland be destroyed this summer when the mob took over the streets. And now Democrats are saying, oh, now we want to use your federal tax dollars to put more criminals on the streets. There’s one other thing. We just learned that 15 percent of the inmates in our federal and our Bureau of Prisons are illegal immigrants. Is that right, Director Carvajal? Non-US citizens. Non-US citizens, and the Democrats want them released as well.”
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