President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he would send the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, may have shocked many Americans. However, this follows an already established pattern, after he sent troops into Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and he is threatening to expand this into other cities like Chicago, Baltimore and Memphis, Tennessee. The very idea that the federal government would usurp local government control in this way, when there is no demonstrable emergency, smacks of authoritarianism and serves as political theater to distract from other ongoing controversies.
While the reality of federal agents patrolling the streets of American cities is shocking, it is also unsurprising for anyone who has followed President Trump’s rhetoric. As a private citizen and a candidate for political office, and during his presidential administrations, he has continued to use charged rhetoric that blares racist dog whistles loud enough for all to hear. In the first several months of his second term, he has deployed masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for dragnet raids, signed executive orders encouraging states and cities to “crack down” on unhoused people, and discontinued federal funding for criminal legal reform programs that sought to address the root causes of crime.
He justifies these actions by fear-mongering over supposedly record-high crime in our communities, which most data plainly refute. To be clear, we must do all we can to prevent crime — something I believe every American values.
I also believe that there are other values that unite us all, including that every person should have access to opportunity; that each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done; and that every person deserves to feel safe in his or her community.
In a sense, the crime rate is irrelevant. Whether rates are high or low, we should be seeking out solutions that work to support public safety and help communities thrive, adhering to the values that unite us.
President Trump’s “tough on crime” mentality has proven to be an utter failure throughout our nation’s history. While widescale deployment of law enforcement can provide some strong optics for social media and 24-hour news channels, those tactics ultimately undermine public safety by instilling fear of law enforcement in minority areas and increasing arrest and conviction rates, particularly in communities of color. More people living with felony convictions means more people struggling to obtain education, jobs, housing, and other opportunities. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in that those with convictions have little hope for prosperity, so they continue committing crimes because they have few alternatives.
America already tried this experiment, beginning in the 1970s and continuing even today. The so-called War on Drugs led to millions of lives ruined by criminal convictions, ballooning prison populations and the underlying issues of substance use and lack of economic mobility unaddressed. We cannot allow heated rhetoric to repeat those past mistakes today.
Delaware already has a powerful blueprint for how it can tackle crime, while also ensuring that people are provided opportunity and grace. Since 2018, our state prison population has decreased by close to 30%, due to sentencing reforms, changes in prosecution practices and the expansion of record clearance tools. State officials have pledged to no longer enforce unconstitutional loitering and soliciting laws against unhoused people, as well as pioneered programs like New Castle County’s Hope Center, which provides people housing and support services to help get them back on their feet. Recently, Milford’s police chief boasted that the city’s heroin overdoses decreased by 80% — not because of “lock ’em up” enforcement tactics but because the city invested in behavioral health services that provided treatment to people with substance use disorders.
In 2025, Delaware passed new laws that expand the use of compassionate release for older adults and ill people in prisons, and that reform the special conditions individuals must adhere to when on probation. These laws will decrease the prison population further, protect public safety and ensure that more residents are able to live fulfilling lives. In 2026, advocates will seek to reform punitive laws that send probationers back to prison for minor technical violations, such as missing meetings with their probation officers.
More work is needed. Delaware currently has a lack of affordable housing, which contributes to more unhoused people. Those with mental health conditions and substance use disorders struggle to obtain health care, leading to them cycling in and out of the legal system. And far too many young people attend underfunded public schools that fail to provide them equitable and rigorous instruction, meaning they are less prepared for the job market and are afforded fewer options.
These are real issues that face our communities, in Delaware and across the nation. Despite what President Trump may have us believe, we cannot arrest and incarcerate ourselves out of them. Instead, we must invest in what we know works: ensuring that every person has access to resources, promoting solutions to problems that drive crime, and providing people tools to restore and rehabilitate them. Tune the dog whistles out, and let’s help our state continue to move forward with what works.
