Tipsheet

Brandon Johnson: We Can't Jail Our Way Out of Violent Crime

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  November 25, 2025 3:00 PM

Earlier, we told you about Zorhan Mamdani's interesting choices for his administration. He's tapped both Janos Marton, who wants to reduce New York's jail and prison population by 80 percent, and Alex Vitale, police abolitionist, to deal with his crime policies in the city.

Good luck, NYC.

But the Big Apple isn't the only urban area with a crime problem and leaders who are both pro-criminal and anti-law enforcement. Chicago's Mayor, Brandon Johnson, is back with his ridiculous belief that we cannot jail our way out of violent crime.

"We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence," Johsnon said. "We've already tried that, and we've ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence. The addiction on jails and incarceration in this country? We have moved past that. It is racist, it is immoral, it is unholy, and it is not the way to drive violence down."

The crowd applauded, of course.

It's a tacit way of admitting many criminals are minorities, and an example of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Nothing is stopping Johnson and his fellow Democrats from demanding that racial minorities stop committing crimes and from holding them accountable for committing crimes they do commit. 

The numbers don't lie.

As this writer pointed out earlier, Democrats don't want to enforce the "social services" and "mental health" treatment they demand we use instead of law enforcement, either. They don't mandate medication regimens, therapy, or forced housing on the homeless and mentally ill.

That, of course, is by design. The chaos that comes with unfettered crime is exactly what Democrats want. They also want the massive spending on such programs without results because it benefits them, too.

Here's more from Heritage:

The idea that the United States is an overly carceral country infected with the scourge of “mass incarceration” is deeply embedded into the mainstream media, academia, and pop culture. But it is just not true, especially taking into account what the phrase actually means in practice and comparing the number of people in prison to the scope and scale of crimes committed. Only a fraction of people who commit crimes are imprisoned—even those who commit violent crimes. Those who support a radical decarceration agenda have gained some headway in their goals by pushing out through various channels the myth that the United States locks up too many people. In reality, the United States likely locks up too few.

Mass incarceration is a myth—and a harmful one at that. Those who push it seek to divide the country on racial lines, all the while ignoring the reality of the scope of violent crime, and what should be done about it. And, ultimately, everyone pays the price.

If you put repeat offenders in prison and keep them there, crime would drop dramatically.

Democrats don't have any interest in doing that, and the results of such policies harm innocent people.