One of the most important and fundamental roles of good government is protecting the citizenry to promote their prosperity. This is best accomplished through a law-and-order system, which enforces laws that promote both order and justice.

When a government fails to uphold and enforce the law, the inevitable result is criminal lawlessness.

The worst criminal lawlessness is violent crime, which is motivated by an animus and disregard for the welfare of others. Societies enforce the law with a police force to hold lawbreakers to account for the sake of justice and the welfare of law-abiding citizenry.

Yet over the past decade, the political divide in the U.S. has included those on the Left who hold anti-law enforcement sentiments based on the false notion that the nation’s police forces are instruments of injustice as opposed to justice.

The death of George Floyd became the pinnacle of the anti-police movement, as hordes of lawless rioters were effectively given carte blanche to run amok, breaking laws left and right, while the criminality was justified by various Democrat leaders as their messy efforts to seek “justice.” Literal lawlessness was excused in support of the dubious narrative of “systemic racism.” And the sad irony was that most often, those who suffered the most from this unrepressed lawlessness were those very minority communities that most needed policing.

Unfortunately, what followed was the election of Joe Biden, who, upon taking office, immediately reversed most of President Donald Trump’s actions to secure the U.S. southern border. Indeed, Biden essentially opened the border wide open, leading to a flood of migrants pouring over the border.

With this mass of humanity illegally entering the U.S. came, predictably, criminal activity, including human and drug trafficking. None of this led to positive outcomes for American citizens, nor, in many instances, for the illegal immigrants themselves, who were often at the mercy of various criminal cartels.

Thankfully, with Trump returning to office, the era of mass-near unchecked illegal immigration is over. Furthermore, the Trump administration has enacted an aggressive agenda to hunt down criminal illegal aliens and deport them.

Last year, following a number of violent crime incidents within the nation’s capital, Trump sent in the National Guard to help assist local law enforcement in cracking down on lawlessness that had been allowed to increasingly get out of hand in the city. But DC wasn’t the only city where Trump sent the National Guard. While some Democrat leaders fought him on his aggressive law enforcement efforts, which makes sense given their anti-police rhetoric, the results of Trump’s criminal crackdown are proving to be worth it.

Releasing its preliminary report on crime data over the last year, FBI Director Kash Patel observed that the violent crime rate has dropped significantly. “The 2025 crime data in this report shows the single largest decrease in violent crime and murder since 1937 — as well as huge decreases across the board in terms of aggravated assault, rape, and robbery,” Patel explained.

The report shows that violent crime across the nation dropped by nearly 10% last year alone. Robberies dropped by 18.5%, rapes were down 8%, and property crimes decreased by 12.4%. Homicides dropped by 18%, and assaults are down 7%.

The data comes from over 17,000 law enforcement districts, which represents 96% of all policing across the country.

In 2025, there were 1.1 million fewer violent crimes and 5.2 million fewer property crimes than in 2024.

But it is important to note that this positive trend in crime data has come at a cost. Some 53 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty last year, and more than 90,000 officers were assaulted in the line of duty.

Good government seeks to enforce the law, fight crime, and hold criminals to account for their crimes. Thankfully, the Trump administration is taking its duty seriously, and it should be praised for doing so. We are all safer thanks to Trump’s crackdown on crime.

And next time you have the opportunity, thank a law enforcement officer for taking on the unenviable duty of standing in the gap and applying the law and policing against lawlessness and crime.