Murders and rapes rose across the country in 2021, according to FBI data released on Wednesday.
The FBI found homicides and rapes were up 4 percent last year, following a nearly 30 percent increase in 2020. The actual murder rate is likely higher, since around half of police departments—including the Los Angeles Police Department and the New York Police Department—did not submit crime data.
The overall violent crime rate decreased slightly by 1 percent, due to a 9 percent drop in robberies, the FBI also found.
Eighty percent of U.S. adults are worried about crime, according to an April Gallup poll. The concern is galvanizing voters nationwide to oust Democrats who embraced the "defund the police" movement. Half a dozen Democratic candidates failed to gain traction in primaries for their soft-on-crime agendas, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Voters are also turning on progressive prosecutors elected on a pledge to reduce incarceration. As part of a growing backlash, residents of Baltimore and San Francisco voted out their left-wing prosecutors this year. The left-wing billionaire George Soros contributed more than $40 million in the past decade to elect prosecutors in half of America’s largest jurisdictions.
Police resignations jumped about 40 percent in 2021, according to a survey from the Police Executive Research Forum. Retirements last year were up 24 percent since 2019. Hirings of new officers are still below their 2019 levels.