Begin in agreement, for example: Our city/county/state needs to keep you safe from crime.
Use values, for example: Security, safety, protection, responsibility, justice.
Show how they benefit, for example: Our policies will make you and your community safer.
Let’s begin by understanding the truth about crime. U.S. violent and property crime rates have fallen to levels not seen since the 1960s. (“Violent crime” means murder, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery. “Property crime” means burglary, general theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.)
“2025 likely had the lowest reported murder and property crime rates ever recorded by the FBI and the lowest violent crime rate since the late 1960s,” according to an analysis of FBI data.
Unfortunately, you can’t persuade with that clear crime data because many Americans are constantly exposed to alarming crime stories on their local news, political rhetoric, and misleading information that make crime feel more widespread than the numbers actually show.
Nevertheless, please check the data for your state or locality, because your crime rates are probably about half what they were 30 years ago. Just looking at homicide, all these cities had historically low murder rates in 2025: Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, Oakland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco; New York City had the fewest shooting victims ever recorded. So, there’s a good chance you can say:
Say… Our police department reports that the rate of violent crime is now lower than it has been in the past three decades. That’s a public safety victory that we should build on, not discredit.
If you don’t bring up low crime as a reason to defund the police and instead use it to praise law enforcement, persuadable residents might be willing to believe the facts.
Nationally, about half of Americans believe that “there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago,” which is false. And that same half still considered crime an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in 2025, but at least that is down from 77 percent who said the same thing in 2023. It’s fair to say that hysteria about crime has diminished, but it remains a major issue.
Whenever you’re talking about crime, do not begin with ideas of fairness or equal opportunity, and don’t lead with the underlying causes of crime. Persuadable voters want to know, most of all, that you will protect them. And that’s what all good progressive criminal justice policies accomplish—they prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and improve the quality of life for everyone in the community.
Don’t say… Rights of criminals
Say… Security, safety, protection, responsibility, justice
Conversely, right-wing policies—like giving long prison sentences to nonviolent drug offenders—take hundreds of millions of dollars away from strategies that more effectively fight drug abuse and prevent crime.
Say… The most basic job of government is to protect you from crime. That means arresting and prosecuting violent offenders. It also means preventing crimes from ever happening, changing tactics that lead toward the wrong suspects, and using the best technology to identify the guilty while protecting the innocent. My overriding goal is to make you safer.
Everyone wants safer communities. But what if the progressive policy is specifically about the rights of the accused? For example, what about policies to require electronic recording of interrogations, reform police procedures for lineups, or create commissions to research whether imprisoned people are innocent? Emphasize that for every wrongly convicted person, there is an actual perpetrator who has escaped justice and remains a threat to our public safety. Point out that more modern police practices have been proven to work better than traditional ones. Say that we owe it to the victim and to the whole community to find and punish the real criminal. For example:
Say… The whole point of this policy is to protect you. Other cities and states have found that electronically recording all police questioning leads to better evidence—and more convictions. Technology has rapidly changed, and we need to take advantage of it to make you safer.