America’s left can’t afford to be silent on crime. Here’s how to talk about it and win | Ben Davis

<p>People have a right to safety. That’s why we must acknowledge crime and insist that we have the best solutions to address its root causes</p><p>In the wake of last summer’s mass uprisings against the police state that killed Geoge Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among so many others, many on the progressive left believed that real change was imminent. Unprecedented numbers of people poured into the streets, day after day, week after week, in the midst of a global pandemic. Polls showed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/10/upshot/black-lives-matter-attitudes.html">a massive upsurge in support</a> for the Black Lives Matter movement. So-called establishment politicians appeared to be on the back foot, with lawmakers in Minneapolis going so far as to pledge to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/08/minneapolis-city-council-police-department-dismantle">abolish their police department</a> and replace it with a community-based public safety model. Large municipalities across the country saw a wave of action, from calls to remove police officers from schools to more demands to defund police departments. Politicians and public figures who had previously been loath to wade into issues of police brutality unequivocally acknowledged the need for drastic reform. Floyd’s gruesome death at the hands of police, and the months of protest that followed, felt like an inflection point – at long last, elected officials and the general public alike seemed jolted out of the usual refrains. Enough was enough.</p><p>Yet just over a year later, the state of policing appears largely unchanged. Almost no US cities have reduced their police budget – some, in fact, have <em><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-funding/">expanded </a></em><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-funding/&quo