I don’t think republicans want this. I think all they want is the criminals already identified or caught to actually be prosecuted and not released back on the streets.

They are politicians, they want to look tough on crime no matter the cost. They make the laws. War on drugs is their creation, half the criminals are created by them. Rudi got popular because stop-and-frisk in NYC, for no legitimate reason cops would stop random people and frisk them. This social classist hostility where crime is what the fund-raising class it is and the solution is hostility against "those people" who are the least likely to be in their party is their MO.

Republican voters want whatever “get tough on crime” aligns with. “Repeal bail reform Derp Derp”

The “freedom” stuff is bullshit and narrowly scoped.

Alternatively one could say Democrats lost ground for being too soft on it.

Seriously though, your comment makes it sound like Republicans benefit from high crime. No one benefits from high crime.

Or rather they weren't soft enough. Republicans are just cruel and unjust because that usually benefits those in the in-group. Democrats compromise so much they are left with the worst of both worlds.

They couldn't decriminalize drugs enough or enable world class social welfare programs when they did get majority control over legislature. But voters are ultimately to blame, they want their cake and to it too.

> But voters are ultimately to blame, they want their cake and to it too.

As a voter, you're given the choice between terrible and truly awful. No matter which you choose, it's your fault?

Frankly, when I buy a new kind of underarm deodorant and later I stink, I feel I'm more to blame than I am for my political vote and any lack-of-outcome. And I'm inundated with deodorant choices - it's harder to pick.

I remember when New York wanted to lynch the Central Park five. Reason and idealism seems to vanish when people feel threatened.

People engaging in petty "affront to the authority of the state" types of crimes benefit because in an environment where you have plenty of real crime to go around there's no need for cops to initiate the kind of police interactions that end up with Eric Garner getting choked out or a bullet in a man who has a bench warrant for failure to pay some BS.