In response to the huge surge in crime, and the extremely lax prosecution of it by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed into law, Act 40, which created a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes “occurring within a public transportation authority that serves as the primary provider of public passenger transportation in the county of the first class.” Philadelphia is the only First-Class City/County in the Keystone State.

This was a clear and obvious attempt to bypass Let ’em Loose Larry, whose lenient prosecution has led to outrage, and we continually hear of violent crimes committed in the city by people who could and should have already been in prison, were it not for the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime Mr Krasner.

Act 40 required, in §1786(a), the state Attorney General to appoint said special prosecutor, “Within 30 days of the effective date of this section,” but that appointment has not yet been made, with the 30 day period long having elapsed. And SEPTA, “the primary provider of public passenger transportation” in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, has seen an unfortunate surge in violent crime in recent weeks, including two mass shootings as public school students were at SEPTA bus stops for their rides home.

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was seeing a similar issue in the New York City subway system, and she took the radical action of deploying 750 National Guard troops to the subways to deter crime. From The Wall Street Journal:

Armed Troops on the New York City Subways

Gov. Hochul would do better by firing New York’s progressive DAs and restoring the successful anticrime policies of the 1990s and 2000s.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, March 9, 2024 | 5:50 PM EST

Here’s a poser to consider for 2025: What if Donald Trump is elected again and decides to send the military to prevent crime or control riots in America’s streets? Wouldn’t half of America lose its collective mind about the supposed threat to democracy?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because President Trump did offer to send federal marshals to help cities provide order during the 2020 summer of hate following the unfortunate death-while-resisting-arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled career criminal George Floyd, and the Democratic mayors of our major cities didn’t want anything to do with that.

Yet that’s essentially what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did this week in dispatching the state National Guard to patrol New York City’s subways to reduce crime. The Democratic Governor is sending 750 troops and 250 state police officers to guard subway trains and platforms amid a spike in violence and robbery against passengers.

No doubt many New Yorkers will be relieved at the sight, even if it will be somewhat disconcerting to see men in military fatigues on the trains. We know from experience it’s reassuring to see NYPD blue in a subway car when a homeless man is harassing passengers for money or because he’s drugged up.

Ms. Hochul is also calling for judges to have more authority to ban people from the subways if they’ve assaulted commuters or subway workers. She wants to add security cameras, and Mayor Eric Adams said this week he’s asked New York police to expand bag searches on the subways.

The editorial included a photo of two National Guardsmen, one of whom was holding a semi-automatic rifle, complete with the magazine in place. Rather than use that, I included a photo I took — no copyright problems there! — of armed Italian Carabinieri, outside of the Arch of Constantine, near the Coliseum. We were not somehow unnerved by the sight, but it was an uncomfortable reminder that Italy has seen more than its share of terrorism.

Less pleasant was the vista of three armed Israeli policemen by the fourth Station of the Cross, but Israel has far worse terrorism problems than anyplace else. As a civilized people, we don’t like the thought that there are uncivilized barbarians out there, barbarians who think nothing of theft, violence, and murder. The George Soros-sponsored far-left prosecutors, like Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and Mr Krasner, are simply too stupid to recognize that there really are barbarians out there, and there are hard-left liberals like the late Jen Angel of Oakland who think that all the barbarians need is some love and hugs.

Back to the Journal:

This is progress after the denial that has prevailed for years among the city’s ruling Democrats. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio and progressives started the downhill slide when they waged political war on cops, on stop and frisk policing, and on the enforcement of offenses against civilized norms.

Yet sending in the military to protect mass transit is also in some sense a sign of societal and political surrender. It means that New York has concluded that it can’t protect its citizens with a normal police presence, or with the laws against vagrancy that once prevailed, or with prosecutors who used to put people in jail for crimes against public order. So send in the guys with assault rifles.

Governor Shapiro has stated that he has no intention of sending the National Guard to help defend SEPTA, so that’s not an issue in Philly yet. But New York City did show the way, in the 1990s, with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a no-nonsense, “broken windows” policing program. The NYPD arrested, and the prosecutors charged, the wannabe goons who were just starting out in their lives of crime, meting out strict punishment for the little stuff with the idea that strict punishment for the ‘little’ stuff would educate the prospective criminals that crime does not pay.

And, even those wannabes who were too stupid to learn were off the streets, and no danger to the public. Then, when they went back on the streets, if they resumed breaking the laws, they already had criminal records, which meant longer sentences for subsequent crimes.

Governor Hochul took an action which, let’s be plain about this, reeks of desperation. She simply had to Do Something, because the criminal class and their families, along with the untouched liberals in Central Park West, are so f(ornicating) stupid to understand that treating criminals leniently simply leads to more criminals.