'Tough-on-crime messaging historically and tacitly represents something more than crime: that the candidate is on the side of ‘us’ and against ‘them,'' said University of Nebraska sociologist Lisa Kort-Butler, who studies the media and crime.
, citing data from AdImpact, a subscription service, that in the previous two weeks, Republican candidates and groups spent more than $21 million on ads about crime — more than on any other policy issue — and Democrats spent nearly $17 million. the record rates of the early 1990s, several categories of violent crime have increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset in 2020.
Candace McCoy, a criminology professor at City University of New York, said the COVID-19 pandemic helped spur increases in violent crime as people recovered from isolation, the loss of loved ones and other residual effects. Max Kapustin, a Cornell University economics and public policy professor who is affiliated with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, referenced theof George Floyd at the hands of police and said it’s not uncommon to see spikes of violence after incidents of police violence.