Does the cop-aganda (In These Times 10/22) have you shaking in your boots? Fearmongering is the Republican modus operandi at election time they hope you will swallow. Local media start the nightly news with the latest arrest or sentencing to feed the hysteria.
Meetings with local activist groups were shunned by the Binghamton mayor or chastised by another candidate about etiquette! Well we know who is protecting their privilege and afraid to sit at a table and tackle issues.
The effect of this view of reality frames you as a potential threat and police as the only real remedy.
The reality is that national rates of violent crime are less than half what they were thirty years ago. From 2017 to 2021 the Total Broome County violent crime also declined from 697 to 651.
Although property crime is larger than violence, property crime also declined each year. Each major municipality crime also declined. Only in 2020 did Binghamton rise, declining the next year.
What cop-aganda gets wrong is the underlying causes of crime and what we do not put our time or resources into tackling is housing inequality, racialized disinvestment and cycles of patriarchal sexism and trauma. Be careful how you vote.
Judy Arnold