Breaking Points’ co-host Saagar Enjeti parrots the right wing’s wrong, dangerous crime myths
Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| September 2025
Crime (both violent and all offenses) stands at 55-year lows, driven by huge drops in cities and among increasingly diverse youth – exactly the opposite of Saager’s panic mode. (This article originally appeared in LA Progressive).
Saager Enjeti, self-described conservative co-anchor on the leftist Breaking Points (1.4 million subscribers), prides himself as the meticulous, well-read realist reining in liberal-left excesses.
On crime and youth issues, however, he’s wildly wrong, venting incessant alarmism that can do real damage to reasoned policy.
Saager (Breaking Points hosts seem to prefer first names) contradicts himself in such rapid-fire delivery it’s hard to sift out a coherent argument beyond rage at Black Lives Matter (BLM) and “liberal… soft on crime do-gooder policies like oh, these poor little juveniles” whose “leniency” has “led to an explosion in carjackings” and kids “wreak(ing) havoc.”
Washington DC’s “two huge problems” are “juvenile offenders” and youthful “carjackings,” he declares, tossing in “quality of life” affronts, a codeword for annoyance at homelessness and drug addiction (just as “youth” is the codeword for “Black”).
Saager constantly shifts on exactly when DC and other cities “went to shit” and what exactly the shit is. He variously lauds 2000 as the year when crime, particularly violence by youth, “wasn’t happening” due to tough policing. Then, 2010 was when the pro-criminal-coddlers took over. Then it was 2014. Then “the last five years,” following BLM.
Cherry-picking years to compare is proof of deception. Re-cherry-picking different years multiplies the sins. Getting crime trends wrong is the final crusher.
Nothing Saager says on crime and youth is even remotely true
…as he’d know if he glanced at readily available FBI, Centers for Disease Control, and DC Metropolitan Police numbers instead of rehashing media and right-wing quips.
In fact, crime and violence rates now stand at half-century lows, both in Washington DC and San Francisco, two “unlivable” cities he singles out for “soft-on-crime” lambasting, and nationwide. These improvements are driven by youth, who have shown by far the biggest, 80% to 90% drops over the last 30 years in violence and crime, including homicide.
Some areas of both cities and rural America remain dangerous, but general “feelings” of endangerment are driven by media histrionics like Saager’s. The charts below summarize the real crime trends.
Figure 1. Major violent and property offenses reported per 100,000 population, 1970-2024
By the best of flawed measures, national and Washington DC crime has not risen since 2010, or 2014 or 2019 or whatever year Saager randomly miscites to mis-blame “Ferguson and BLM [Black Lives Matter] anti-police policies” for whatever made crime “skyrocket,” whenever it skyrocketed.
Saager focuses vitriol on Washington and San Francisco, which he accuses of becoming “unlivable” due to “soft on crime” policies. Figures 2 and 3 show these cities’ crime trends per 100,000 population over the last 25 years:
Figure 2. Washington DC crime rates, 2000-2024
Source: MetropolitanPolice, 2025
Figure 3. San Francisco crime rates, 2000-2024
Source: California Open Justice (2025).
Saager alternatingly complains about violent crime (which stands at near-record lows), then, when challenged, insists he’s really talking about “quality of life” (which means encountering unpleasant things). I’m guessing Saager has never been victimized by an assault or armed robbery, as I have, or he’d appreciate that violence diminishes “quality of life” infinitely more than seeing a homeless addict.
Crime statistics are eminently criticizable. But to refute them, critics have to show they have better sources of information than FBI, state, local, National Crime Victimization, and CDC tabulations that consistently show crime, violence, and youthful offending all are down big time, everywhere. to paraphrase, the plurals of “my feelings” and “what happened to me” are not “data.”
That said, even in the two cities he singles out, both violent and total crimes are down, often substantially, compared to all the previous, pre-soft-on-crime years when he insists police were tough and unhampered by BLM. San Francisco’s mid-2010s spike in property crime was due entirely to the temporary presence of roving “smash and grab” car burglary rings, not policy.
Contrary to Saager’s claim, the “Ferguson effect” of police being too “scared” by “anti-police” BLM rhetoric to enforce laws is not “proven fact;” not even nearly. It is highly disputed, solidly refuted, and not confirmed by trends – unless he wants to admit less harsh policing yields less crime.
Nor are carjackings DC’s biggest crime problem. All robberies, of which carjackings (robbery of a vehicle) are just one part, comprise less than 12% of the city’s Part I violence and property felonies.
What, then, is Washington DC’s real “crime problem”?
Imagine how radically different Saager’s “crime is bad!” rants would be if he admitted his own 30-agers (he’s 33) – not easily scapegoated “youths” – were by far Washington DC’s and the nation’s the most serious crime, violence, murder, disorderly conduct, and drug abuse problem.
Not only are youth (mobbers, carjackers and all) NOT DC’s, the nation’s, or any city’s worst crime problem; they are lesser and declining contributors far down the list.
Figure 4. U.S. violent offenses per 100,000 population, youths versus 30-agers, 2000-2024.
Source: FBI, Crime Data Explorer, 2025; Crime in the United States, 1995-2019.
Figure 4. U.S., all criminal offenses per 100,000 population, youths versus 30-agers, 2000-2024.
Source: FBI, Crime Data Explorer, 2025; Crime in the United States, 1995-2019.
Criminal behavior by Saager’s age cohort, 30-34, makes the city’s juveniles look tame. In 2024, DC police reports show:
- All ages under 18: 967 violent crimes, 2,250 total criminal offenses
- Age 30-34: 1,502 violent crimes, 7,102 total criminal offenses
- DC juveniles account for 9.8% of violent and 5.3% of total crime (you’d think it was 95% or 98% by politician and press bellowings).
- Meanwhile, 30-39-agers account for 26.6% of violent crime and 25.9% of all crime – 2 to 3 times more than teenaged youths do.
Go back to 2010, which Saager seems to regard as some nirvana when tough, pre-BLM policing prevailed resulting in low crime and youth offending, Metro police stats show that juveniles accounted for 9.7% of DC’s crime (1.8 TIMES MORE than today’s youthful crime), while 30-agers accounted for 12.4% (just HALF of today’s 30-age crime toll).
That is, DC’s juvenile crime volume has fallen during the supposed “lenient” era, while 30-age crime has skyrocketed.
Today, juvenile crime today is less of a problem than crime by ages 30-34, 25-29, 35-39, 18-24, and 40-44. This isn’t a fluke. Figures for 2023, 2022, and other recent years and cities are similar.
Notice that little post-2020 blip at the far righthand sides of Figures 2 and 3, in which crime increased for all ages as the country re-opened after the record lows coinciding with the COVID lockdowns? That’s what all the media ranters mean when they talk about crime “skyrocketing”!
No matter. Police, politicians like President Trump, and the press eagerly seize on any juvenile offense (such as the alleged youthful assault on Trump-Musk minion “Big Balls”) as “illustrating” some scourge of “youth violence!” and “juveniles out of control!” – a perpetual mantra they regularly bray year after year, decade after decade.
For example, sensational reports of “unruly mobs” of youths have grabbed headlines when a small number in a group of hundreds are disorderly. Teenagers (especially Black ones, who comprise 90% of DC’s youth arrests) are politically powerless, easy for armchair pundits to scapegoat.
Yet, when grownups go to bars weekend after weekend and collectively cause more crimes, no one blames all adults. No bad press or curfew demands afflict older ages, not even when police numbers show that Saager’s own age causes far more disorderly conduct, drunkenness, and assault offenses than teenaged youths do.
Saager’s rant included blaming fentanyl for the urban crime, homeless, and civic disorder he lambastes from San Francisco to DC. CDC figures show teenagers account for just 1% of fentanyl overdoses, while Saager’s and co-host Krystal Ball’s own 30-age and 40-age cohorts account for a whopping one-third of DC’s fentanyl o.d.’s, and older ages even more.
The ultimate irony: If we adopt Saager’s larger logic that crime policy drives crime trends, wouldn’t he have to admit that “soft on crime,” “BLM,” and “youth coddling” measures actually deserve credit for today’s provably lower rates of crime?
Krystal demurs that inequality, unemployment, and community decay are the real drivers of crime everywhere, a valid point – but she also fails to acknowledge the remarkable, even revolutionary, plummets in crime and violence by increasingly diverse youth. Unfortunately, Saager and Krystal, along with other commentators, still mire in blaming youth for social problems and “social media” for youth problems.
We need to pull our heads out of self-serving mythology and take hard stock of what is really going on. Progressives’ touted respect for science and the value of diversity should be leading innovative ideas. Unfortunately, we’re seeing too much panic instead, the friend of repression and failure.