During his long writing career, journalist/author Radley Balko has focused heavily on civil liberties and criminal justice. Balko has been a scathing critic of the War on Drugs, detailing many examples of police overreach in his 2013 book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces." And a recurring theme of his work is that too many Americans are willing to sacrifice civil liberties in the name of safety and security.
That theme is evident in an article republished by Mother Jones on August 28. Balko gives a blistering analysis of President Donald Trump's militarized takeover of Washington, D.C., arguing that the Trump Administration is blatantly distorting crime statistics to justify its overreach.
"Donald Trump's 'takeover' of Washington, DC, is authoritarian thuggery," Balko argues. "It's a projection of power, driven by retrograde racism. It has nothing to do with recent crimes, or actual crime, or actual crime rates. We know this because it's been in the works for more than a year. That said, I think it's still important to point out when they're lying. And everything they're claiming in justification of the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C. is a lie."
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Balko continues, "In defense of President Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops in the nation's capital, the White House has put out a 'fact sheet' of scary statistics on crime in Washington, D.C. It's about what you'd expect: a bunch of brazen, lazy, easily disproven garbage. Which, of course, isn't surprising. What's surprising is that they’ve actually linked to the sources that disprove their lies."
The 50-year-old Gen-X journalist goes on to debunk the Trump White House's "fact sheet," published on August 11.
"Trump has also claimed that homicides in D.C. in 2023 were the 'highest ever,'" Balko explains. "Not even close. The city's murder rate topped 80 per 100,000 in 1991. As of April, D.C.'s murder rate this year ranked not fourth highest, but 19th. It ranked behind red state cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Tulsa."
The journalist/author adds, "Again, the whole point of the study the White House itself cited was to compare year-over-year homicide stats — to see which cities improved from 2023 to 2024. And here, D.C. comes out very well. Of the 23 cities the study surveyed, D.C. had the fourth-highest drop in its homicide rate from 2023 to 2024."
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Balko stresses that Trump's actions promote less stability, not more, in U.S. cities.
"A surge of heavily armed troops is not going to fix any of D.C.'s problems — and it certainly won't make residents more trustful of law enforcement," Balko warns. "I'm fairly comfortable predicting that, contrary to the (Trump) Administration's claims, Donald Trump will not end crime in D.C. I'll also go out on a limb and predict that the Democrats are not going to unravel civilization. To the extent that our own civilization is in jeopardy, Donald Trump is a big part of the cause."
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Radley Balko's full article is available at this Mother Jones link.