HEATHER MACDONALD: The reason that people are not being put in jail today is because nobody wants to, as a recent crime victim said "put another black man in jail." As a result, we are putting everybody at risk.

The anarchy in America’s big cities is out of control.

Mentally ill psychotics with criminal records six feet long are shoving people into subways and down subway stairs, sometimes fatally, as happened a week ago in New York. These repeat criminals are not being confined to… pic.twitter.com/MX9TBPWo0W

— Heather Mac Donald (@HMDatMI) May 14, 2026

FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

Murder homicide data is the gold standard in the criminal justice system because you really can't hide the bodies, and it looks like there has been a significant decrease across the country this year.  But on the other hand, that doesn't mean that we have an acceptable level of crime. Two things can be true. Violent crime can have decreased from the post George Floyd race riot hysteria high, but we can be moving back towards the mean.  At the same time, we we have a level of anarchy in New York City, in Los Angeles, in Philadelphia, yes, in Washington DC that is simply unacceptable.  I would argue that in some senses crime today is worse than it was in the 1960s because you have a completely different element at this point.  You have these mentally ill psychotics who have criminal records the length of 6 ft that are still out there pushing people into subways, pushing them down Subway stairs, as we saw recently to their deaths, that are not being confined all because of this conceit of disparate impact.  The reason that people are not being put in jail today is because nobody wants to, as a recent crime victim said "put another black man in jail."  As a result, we are putting everybody at risk. And this type of crime committed by repeat offenders that should either be locked away after their second offense, as far as I'm concerned, or put in a mental institution involuntarily is something that we have not seen at this level ever.