by Michael R. Sisak
April 17, 2023

NEW YORK (AP) — Republicans upset with Donald Trump’s indictment are escalating their war on the prosecutor who charged him, trying to embarrass Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on his home turf partly by falsely portraying New York City as a place overrun by crime.

The House Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, held a field hearing Monday near Bragg’s offices to examine the Democrat’s “pro-crime, anti-victim” policies.

… But in reality, the city’s violent crime rate remains substantially below the U.S. average.

… “People hear New York and they think crime, and that’s because they’ve been trained to think that way,” said Dr. Jeffrey Butts, the director of the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. “It’s not real. It’s just the stories that people tell.” “If you’re living in some predominantly small, white county in Iowa, you hear New York and you just imagine all the scary movies and TV shows you’ve seen,” Butts said. “I think that’s what Congress is playing off of.”

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