Republican Study Committee Memo Offers Conservative Solutions to Rising Crime

Conservatives must offer concrete solutions to address rising crime in the U.S., Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said in a memo sent to committee member offices Monday, offering a slate of solutions. 

The memo walks through the recent crime wave seen under Democrat leadership, including a dramatic rise in homicides, the murder of law enforcement officers, drug seizures, gang activity, aggravated assaults, motor vehicle thefts, retail theft, and domestic violence. 

“The Left has allowed a culture built on hating the police to drive decisions surrounding law enforcement,” the memo reads, deeming the Defund the Police movement as “one of the greatest dangers to public safety in our nation’s history” and pinning the responsibility directly on Democrats. The memo highlights attempts to make the movement mainstream, via classrooms and corporate giants who have “parroted” Black Lives Matter (BLM) messaging. 

The memo also blasts the Biden administration for refusing to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, thereby empowering cartels and allowing drugs to flow across the border into U.S. communities:

In 2021, deportations of non-drug-related convicted felons dropped by 50%. In a letter to Senate leadership, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott stated “control of our borders has disintegrated overnight.” As Florida’s Attorney General, Ashley Moody, explained, “Mexican drug cartels and human smugglers wasted no time exploiting your open border policies. From the time you took office to December 2021, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in our country SIX TIMES over—and increase of over 30 percent since before you took office.” 

“What policies should conservatives pursue to fight back while also respecting state and local governments’ primary responsibility to police and prosecute crime within their borders?” the memo asks, listing a series of policies conservatives should pursue. That includes a “Concerned Citizens Bill of Rights,” which would “hold anti-police officials accountable for fostering a culture of crime within their jurisdictions by conditioning a state’s receipt of relevant DOJ grant funding on the adoption of certain pro-law enforcement measures. Those include reining in “rouge prosecutors” and fighting no-cash bail. 

Banks also calls for “robust federal prosecution” by ensuring that the Department of Justice (DOJ) “reinstitutes the Trump-era policy — rescinded by the Biden administration — that ensured federal prosecutors charged the highest offense rather than a lesser included offense as means of skirting mandatory minimums.”

Other initiatives include:

• Side stepping rouge prosecutors
• Deterring criminal violence and drug trafficking by strengthening criminal las and “enhancing penalties against violent, repeat offenders
• Policing reform in D.C.
• Targeting Biden’s immigration crisis
• Stopping anti-police education
• Addressing consent decrees and advancing legislation to codify qualified immunity for police
• Stopping violence against police via legislation to enhance federal punishments for crimes against law enforcement
• Big Tech accountability

“From the White House to liberal state and local governments, there has been a systemic failure to contain crime in America,” the memo’s “Bottom Line” reads. 

“It stems from the dangerous belief that enforcing the law is somehow morally wrong or even racist. It has paralyzed law enforcement agencies at all levels and created prosecutors who would rather let a dangerous criminal walk out of jail than enforce the law,” it continues. 

“Once again, Democrats have broken a part of our civil society, and once again it will be conservatives who will step up to piece it together,” the memo concludes.