It is horrifying to watch as the violent crime rate is skyrocketing in some places run by liberal politicians.

That's because many on the left do not want to punish people, especially the poor who commit crimes.

They see those folks as victims of an oppressive society, i.e. America.

So the USA is now on the verge of becoming South Africa.

As you may have heard, paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius is expected to be freed from prison this week after serving only ten months for shooting and killing his girlfriend. 

In a bizarre trial, Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide after he testified that he shot Reeva Steenkamp in the bathroom of their home because he thought she was a burglar.

Absurd and everybody watching the trial knows it.

The couple had been arguing.  She was trying to break up with him and wound up dead.

Quite simply, South Africa should be ashamed.

Here in the USA, the media is largely ignoring the rising stats on violent crime.

In New York City, run by liberal mayor Bill De Blasio, murders are up more than nine percent in one year. 

Rape up nearly seven percent.

In Chicago, run by liberal mayor Rahm Emanuel, murders are up about 22%.

Shooting incidents up more than 18%.

Criminal sexual assault up more than six percent.

In Los Angeles, where the city council is unbelievably left wing, aggravated assault up more than 26% percent, total violent crime up more than 20%.

That means thousands of innocent people are dying or being injured because of foolish public policy.

Here in New York, authorities now let vagrants openly bother passersby, use the streets as bathrooms and generally do whatever they want to do.

Traffic chokes the city.  Commuters cannot even get into the workplace on some days, and the quality of life decline is stark and frightening.

Some of the chaos is coming from the top, as President Obama has openly declared so-called nonviolent offenders should be given leniency by the criminal justice system.

Included in that nonviolent category: people who sell heroin, cocaine and meth, folks who sell poison.  Estimates are that more than 70 percent of all crime in this country is drug-related, as is child abuse and neglect.

Yet the pushers are non-violent ... 

On the border things are even more intense.

According to a Texas Department of Public Safety report, in five-and-a-half years criminal aliens have been responsible for more than 600,000 individual crimes.  That includes almost 3,000 homicides in Texas alone.

So you can see what is happening in places where the left runs the show, Americans are now being put in danger by lenient criminal justice policies.

There is no doubt about it.

When a society is fine with giving a man who kills his girlfriend ten months in prison, you don't have a criminal justice system.

When a society feels sorry for a heroin pusher, you have chaos.

When a society refuses to incarcerate illegal aliens with aggravated felonies on their sheet, you have anarchy.

Talking Points believes that if Americans continue to elect far-left individuals, the danger to everyone will reach critical mass -- and soon.

And that's the memo.