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Violent crime is the story of Portland\u2019s summer. News broadcasts and newspaper headlines are dominated by a recent pair of unprovoked attacks: the racist assault of a Japanese American family over the 4th of July holiday weekend<\/a>, and the killing last week of an 82-year-old Oregon State University professor attacked at a bus stop<\/a>. Both assaults were allegedly committed by men living on the streets.<\/p>\n Violent crime rates are rising across the country, and the trend is making people feel unsafe in their cities\u2014and, by extension, threatening progressive efforts to reform the criminal justice system in Portland and major cities across the country.<\/p>\n But are progressive reforms and activist politicians to blame for the latest crime wave? That question was posed by a timely report<\/a> published last Tuesday by researchers at the Brennan Center for Justice in the New York University School of Law.<\/p>\n Their conclusion: There just isn\u2019t enough evidence to establish a link between increased violence and progressive policies. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing narratives about crime and public safety being used to rollback gains in the reform movement\u2014largely without evidentiary basis,\u201d Ames Grawert, an author of the report and senior counsel at the Brennan Center, told WW.<\/p>\n The problem is real: the nation\u2019s murder rate rose by nearly 30 percent in 2020 alone, the report notes. In Chicago, murders increased 57% from the prior year. In Portland, there was an 83% jump<\/a> in homicides.<\/p>\n