President Trump emphasized his administration’s tough-on-crime approach, vowing to end cashless bail and increase the use of the death penalty during his speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday.
“We will end no cash bail, and institute the death penalty for large-scale drug dealers, human traffickers, and murderers of our law enforcement heroes,” he told the cheering crowd in Dallas.
Crime and immigration are two key areas where voters have credited Trump with top marks. The president has repeatedly touted the country’s decreased crime rate as a reason to keep Republicans in power.
He dispatched National Guard members in various US cities — including Washington, DC — and pushed a number of policies that levy harsh penalties on criminals.
Trump signed an executive order to encourage the disuse of cashless bail, which lets defendants be released from jail before their trial without having to pay a financial bond.
His order, signed in August, asks federal agencies to withhold federal grants and funding from states and cities that use cashless bail.
Some state governments have reformed bail laws in favor of supervised pretrial release out of concern that posting cash disproportionately impacts poorer populations.
New York scrapped the policy for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies in 2019 — and allowed judges to consider the offender’s financial situation when making bond determinations.
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The president also brought back the death penalty in federal cases, signing an executive order on his first day in office that lifted the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and directed prosecutors to prioritize capital punishment in eligible cases.
Trump argued the death penalty is necessary to deter heinous crimes.
Since then, federal prosecutors have moved to seek the death penalty against at least 42 defendants in 34 cases, The Intercept found in July.
He slammed Democrats as soft on crime in his nearly two-hour speech at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
“The Democrats put handcuffs on our police, but we put handcuffs on criminals,” Trump said. “Last year, we achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded, with the murder rate falling to the lowest level in 125 years— 1900.”
