Reducing crime requires law enforcement and prosecution

Last year while campaigning across Virginia, I repeatedly heard the same concerns about public safety and the rise in crime. I saw communities gripped in fear, officers leaving police forces in droves due to lack of support, and too many victims to count. From Abingdon to the suburbs of Fairfax County, the city of Richmond, the shores of Virginia Beach, and the hills of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginians everywhere were concerned about the rise of violent crime in the commonwealth.

And rightfully so: The Council on Criminal Justice
found
that murders increased in every major city nationwide in 2021. Virginia’s murder rate is the highest it’s been since the turn of the century, and many of our communities have seen an uptick in gun and gang violence.

It might seem obvious, but putting the violent criminals responsible for committing crimes behind bars is necessary to reduce crime. Data show that prosecution also serves as a deterrent to future criminal activity. Our locally elected prosecutors are literally on the front lines playing a critical role in keeping us safe. A bumper sticker I once saw notes, “Commonwealth’s Attorneys: the only thing between prison and a catch-and-release program.”

Our justice system is straightforward in its simplicity. Law enforcement investigates and arrests violent criminals, defense attorneys provide a vigorous defense with protections under our U.S. Constitution, and prosecutors zealously prosecute these criminal charges to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When the system works, victims are heard, and violent criminals are taken off our streets.

However, that system is threatened by the “criminal first, victim last” mindset of the far-Left prosecutors whose soft-on-crime approach is contributing to a crime explosion in our country. In many ways, instead of acting as prosecutors, they act as defense attorneys, completely upending our current system of criminal justice.

In Fairfax County, for example, the local commonwealth’s attorney, Steve Descano, has stopped prosecuting more than 20 different types of crimes and has instructed his prosecutors to avoid mandatory minimums and drop felonies to misdemeanors whenever possible.

Since his election, the murder rate in Fairfax County has doubled.
During a FOX 5 interview
, it was revealed that multiple attorneys in his office have resigned, including one who admitted to making “numerous mistakes and missteps due to a lack of experience … and being completely overwhelmed” while handling sex crime cases.

The alleged serial killer responsible for the murders and attempted murders of multiple homeless men in Washington, D.C., and New York City was
previously arrested
in Fairfax County. He should have been behind bars. In fact, he had 88 prior charges on his record and was out on probation for a violent crime when he was picked up on abduction, breaking and entering, and possession of ammunition charges — all felonies. However, Descano agreed to drop the felony charges in exchange for a misdemeanor and a light sentence that got him back on the streets early, allowing him to go on a rampage across the East Coast.

Prosecutors are a key component of our criminal justice system. But liberal prosecutors such as Descano have created a revolving door that puts criminals back on the streets as quickly as they were picked up and leaves law enforcement overwhelmed. Liberal prosecutors are indeed contributing to a “catch-and-release” program that is putting violent criminals back on our streets, which puts more innocent people at risk. They are sending a message to criminals that there is no consequence for breaking the law.

It is naive and counterintuitive to believe that being lenient on violent criminals will lead to a more just society. Eliminating criminal justice is not criminal justice reform.

To restore public safety, we need to elect prosecutors committed to enforcing the law, calling balls and strikes, and putting the rights of victims before criminals. An obstacle to this is the radical, liberal elites who are bankrolling the campaigns of leftist, weak-on-crime, activist district attorneys. Capital Research found that nearly $30 million has been spent backing these radical district attorney candidates in more than 20 different communities.

While most of the liberal elites funding these campaigns live in wealthy, gated neighborhoods where they will never feel the effects of their advocacy, those who must suffer the consequences are the poor, the working class, and the marginalized.

To protect these people and keep our communities safe, it is critical that we have local prosecutors who are dedicated to restoring accountability in the judicial process. As the honorary chairman of the Protecting Americans Action Fund, I am working to elect district attorneys that believe our judicial system should be consistent, impartial, and public safety oriented.

In addition to prosecutors who support the rule of law, government officials, community leaders, and law enforcement need to work together to fix our public safety crisis.

At the legislative level, state and federal elected officials need to pass laws that will crack down on violent crime and repeat offenders. Legislation should empower, not restrict, law enforcement, who risk their lives every day to protect us. We need to support them in this role and encourage young people to consider law enforcement as a career instead of vilifying them.

In my first 90 days as attorney general, I have crisscrossed Virginia, meeting with local law enforcement, sheriffs, and police chiefs to hear from them about the challenges they are facing. They emphasized the importance of collaboration between community leaders and local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to lower crime. My office is cross-designating assistant attorneys general with our U.S. Attorney’s Office to prosecute gang and gun violence specifically, which is plaguing so many areas in our commonwealth. We are also funding and organizing programs with community leaders that will help prevent and reduce gun and gang violence, steer at-risk youth away from a life of crime, and identify bad actors in communities.

By applying proven solutions, supporting law enforcement, learning from different groups and partners, and listening to what our communities need, we can restore public safety. However, to be most effective, we need prosecutors who are willing to prosecute criminals and work with my office and law enforcement to make our streets and communities safe once again.

Jason Miyares is the 48th attorney general of the commonwealth of Virginia. He is a former prosecutor from Virginia Beach, and his family fled Cuba in 1965. He is the first Latino elected statewide in Virginia as well as the first son of an immigrant to be attorney general.