Mike Males
Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Cully Stimson’s gloating in MAGA media splashes that “lawful” Republican-ruled Florida is enjoying plummeting violent crime while violence is “skyrocketing” in “lawless” Democrat-governed California is worse than a partisan joke.
The real question is exactly the opposite: how have Republican America’s small towns and rural areas become more dangerous than Democratic America’s that big cities right-wing demagogues incessantly vilify?
First, Florida’s incompetently-reported crime numbers can’t be used to argue anything. The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer shows more than half of Florida’s police agencies failed to report crime numbers at all in 2022, while just 2% of California’s police agencies defaulted. While Florida suffered 1,473 murders in 2022, the Florida crime stats Heritage and MAGA media ballyhoo show just 88 arrests for murder statewide (not exactly “law-and-order” policing), compared to 1,614 murder arrests in California.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s strategy for fighting crime is the same as for its excessive rates of drug overdose (21% higher than California’s), COVID-19 deaths (34% higher than California’s), and gun violence (69% higher than California’s, including 33% higher for gun murder): just don’t report damning statistics and rely on tame rightists to hype lies.
Second, the best statistics available show the shocking reality that murder and gun-violence rates are higher in rural Florida’s deep red counties than in California’s big-city counties. Recent numbers for the most accurately measured violent crime (one the right-wing constantly cites), murder, are available from nearly all agencies in all states. Table 1 shows the latest, 2022-23 murder rates per 100,000 population for Florida and California.
Table 1. Homicides per 100,000 population, 2022-23
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California (Democratic at every level)
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Florida (Republican at every level)
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California’s large urban counties only 3.8
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Florida’s rural and small-town areas only 5.1
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All areas of California 3.8
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All areas of Florida 4.5
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Gun homicides per 100,000 population, 2022-23
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California’s large urban counties only 2.8
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Florida’s rural and small-town areas only 3.4
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All areas of California 2.7
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All areas of Florida 3.6
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Source: Centers for Disease Control 2023.
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Instead of indulging ideological distortions of the Heritage type, we use standard CDC vital statistics tabulations to compare two starkly different Americas: all 1,071 rural and small-town counties in the 23 states governed by Republican governors and legislatures versus all 92 urban counties containing large cities in the 15 states ruled by Democratic governors and legislatures.
Republican counties are sparsely settled, averaging 24,000 population, 76% non-Latinx White. The Democratic counties average 773,000 people, 56% of color, and contain major cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, Washington DC, Portland, San Francisco, Newark, New York City, etc., relentlessly pilloried in national media for violence and crime.
Which America’s residents are safer from murder and shootings?
Table 2. Homicides and gun homicides per 100,000 population, 2010-2022
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All homicides
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Gun homicides
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Year
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Big city
Democratic state
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Small town/rural
Republican state
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Big city
Democratic state
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Small town/rural
Republican state
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2010
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5.9
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4.5
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4.0
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3.0
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2011
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5.5
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4.8
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3.7
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2.9
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2012
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5.6
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4.7
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3.8
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2.9
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2013
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5.2
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4.8
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3.6
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3.0
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2014
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5.1
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4.5
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3.4
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2.9
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2015
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5.6
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5.1
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4.0
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3.6
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2016
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6.0
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5.4
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4.3
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3.7
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2017
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5.7
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5.7
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4.1
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3.8
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2018
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5.4
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5.7
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3.8
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3.9
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2019
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5.1
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6.0
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3.6
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4.3
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2020
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7.0
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7.3
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5.3
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5.4
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2021
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7.7
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7.2
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6.0
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5.6
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2022
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7.0
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7.3
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5.3
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5.5
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Change*
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up 33%
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up 78%
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up 54%
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up 133%
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Source: Centers for Disease Control 2023. *Change is calculated from regression trendlines that, instead of cherry-picking arbitrarily selected years to compare, incorporate all 13 years of data.
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Prior to 2018 and especially in years before 2010, residents of rural areas were much safer from murder and gun violence than residents of big cities. In the recent decade, however, rural America (especially in states governed by Republicans) has become dramatically more dangerous, with much larger increases in homicide and gun killings even by conservative statistical analysis than large cities in Democrat-run states (Table 2).
While residents of color had higher homicide rates than non-Latinx Whites in both areas, Whites’ also experienced substantial murder increases during 2010-22 and are much more in danger in Republican rural areas than in Democratic urban areas. For all homicides, White rates rose more than twice as fast in Republican rural areas to a rate 1.7 times higher than for Whites in Democratic cities. For gun homicides, White rates in Republican rural areas rose faster to a level more than twice as high as for Whites in Democratic cities.
Fox News at least provided a counter-response from California leaders, but copycat right-wing media simply repeated without context Heritage’s flat lie that there is “no Red-state murder problem.” Of course, there isn’t – if one ignores the 1,800 murders (1,350 by guns) in sparsely-settled, heavily White, rural Republican-state areas in 2022 and so far in 2023, surging upward from 2010 levels while those same areas saw declining populations. And if one also ignores that those rural-Republican murder rates are now higher than those suffered in racially diverse Democratic big cities.
Another of Heritage Foundation’s bizarre jokes is that “pro-law enforcement, pro-law and order” Ronald Reagan and past Republican governors were leaders who kept crime down. Blatantly false. Under Reagan’s governorship of California from 1967 to 1975, violent crime rates soared 215% to a level 30% higher than rates today. During the 16-year terms of the Republican governors Stimson praises, California’s violent crime rate surged to a peak in 1992 at more than twice the level in 2022.
Stimson and Heritage Foundation are treating its funders and MAGA-media customers as brainless jokes. Disturbingly, right-wing foolishness like Heritage’s often gains traction after being aped by impressionable, low-analysis “liberal” media entities like Atlantic Magazine and Bill Maher. For those who take a serious, analytical view of a serious issue like violence, Californians and Floridians alike should know that tough “law and order” talk and low violent crime rates seldom go together.
Mike Males is senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, San Francisco, and YouthFacts.org.
