New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. Omaha, Nebraska. It doesn’t matter. Ask a law enforcement officer in almost any major city how it’s going, and he’ll tell you the same thing: Crime is skyrocketing, and they’re struggling to stop it.

The summer of murder was followed by an autumn of murder. Homicide rates across America’s large cities increased by 42% during the summer of 2020 and 34% in the fall of 2020 compared to 2019, according to a new report by the Council on Criminal Justice. Other data confirm this trend: Crime analyst Jeff Asher found that murder was up by 36% as of December, and a Wall Street Journal analysis in August found that homicides were up by 24% even as other violent crimes, such as robbery, fell.