Last month, 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was savagely stabbed to death by another passenger on the Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail line. Based on security footage of the act, officials have arrested and charged Decarlos Brown Jr. for the crime.
Due to increasingly lax criminal justice policies and failure to address public disorder, American cities are failing to keep residents safe and make metropolitan living broadly desirable. America is the wealthiest nation in history – our cities should be beacons of innovation, creativity, and human potential. And while most of our metropolises face many roadblocks that restrict thriving urbanism, one thing is clear: The American City cannot blossom in lawlessness.
It’s a common pastime in urban circles to poke fun at those who fear city life. And often, those fears are exaggerated, frequently shaped more by sensational media than lived experience. City dwellers take pride in their neighborhoods and know they are typically not the war zones often portrayed on cable news and in clickbait articles.
Nevertheless, Americans should never settle for “not a war zone” as the standard for where they work, live, and create. Concerns about crime and disorder are valid; statistics make that clear. Until they are meaningfully addressed, trust and a sense of safety will remain out of reach. People cannot be expected to embrace public spaces if they are constantly worried about harassment, or worse, threats to their lives and families.
Decarlos Brown Jr. is representative of a wider failure by those running our cities. Brown, with 14 prior arrests, has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and breaking and entering. Further, after a court order having him involuntarily committed, he was placed under psychiatric monitoring and later diagnosed with schizophrenia, but was soon released. He became so aggressive that his mother kicked him out, leaving him homeless. Releasing him to the streets in the name of social justice, while likely well-intentioned, is misguided and jeopardizes public safety. In the tragic case of Iryna Zarutska, it cost a woman her life.
It is not compassionate to release Brown, a clearly violent and unstable individual, nor is it just to endanger innocents. This was a policy choice – one that can be reversed.
New York offers one of the clearest examples of a failure to address these problems. In 2022, 30% of the city’s 22,000 shoplifting arrests were committed by just 327 people – together racking up more than 6,600 busts. And it goes well beyond property crime: Felony assaults by repeat offenders have surged 146.5% over the past six years, with suspects with three or more arrests charged 442 times in 2024.
The pattern isn’t unique to New York. In Washington, D.C., roughly two-thirds of individuals returning from prison recidivate. In Atlanta in 2022, 1,000 people were responsible for 40% of the city’s crimes. And in Philadelphia, of the more than 2,200 people arrested for shootings between 2015 and 2021, 76% had prior arrests, and 51% had been arrested three or more times.
Across America’s major cities, a small cohort of repeat offenders is responsible for a vastly outsized share of criminal activity – and the broader public is facing the consequences of inaction.
Other antisocial behaviors, from drug use in transit systems to chronic homelessness, often driven by untreated mental illness, are also taking a toll. In Seattle, researchers tested buses and trains across five transit agencies in the Pacific Northwest and found traces of methamphetamine in every single air sample and nearly every surface swab. Fentanyl showed up in a quarter of the air samples and nearly half of the surface samples.
These conditions instill neither confidence in transit nor appeal to downtowns. It all sends a clear message that our leaders are failing to uphold the most basic standards of public order. Allowing violent crime and dysfunction to run amok is an abdication.
To change course and restore public faith, state and city leaders must do three things: confront disorder by expanding mental health services so people are not left wandering the streets; in necessary cases, provide long-term court-ordered treatment with full respect for due process, human dignity, and the lessons of past mistakes; and hold individuals accountable for their actions.
Iryna Zarutska’s tragic story is one of many examples of the need for reform in tackling violent crime. As long as people feel that cities are neglecting the most basic duty of government – ensuring public safety through equal justice – an American urban renaissance will remain beyond our grasp. If the American City is to blossom, we must prioritize the rights of individuals over the coddling of criminals and the tolerance of social decay. By restoring basic order and justice, our cities can be places where innovation thrives, culture flourishes, and the human spirit realizes its full potential.
