WASHINGTON, DC – After repeatedly bragging about his “Operation Ceasefire” program on the campaign trail, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares will have to explain why he inflated the numbers. The Virginia Independent reports that while Miyares claimed crime was going down faster in areas with the Ceasefire program, his own data shows that communities with and without the program had almost identical levels of improvement, indicating his program did nothing in actually reducing the crime rate in Virginia. 

 As The Virginia Independent’s Josh Israel reported, “The statistics he cited didn’t tell the whole story though. According to the accompanying data in the release, Ceasefire Virginia cities saw a 34% decrease in murder, but only an 8% drop in overall crime, and they only had a violent crime reduction one percent higher than in the rest of Virginia, 12% vs. 11%.”  

 Key highlights: 

• “But his own data shows that the drop in violent crime rates from 2023 to 2024 in the 13 Virginia cities involved in the program was almost identical to that seen in the commonwealth’s other 120 independent cities and counties.”

• “In May 2024, Miyares told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that, on the prosecution side, a key part of the program’s success was due to targeting repeat violent offenders to keep them off the streets. However, he told the outlet that of the 155 cases brought under Ceasefire Virginia at that point, just 38, less than 25%, were repeat violent offenders.” 

• A March 2024 story by the Virginian-Pilot reported that the Ceasefire Virginia program showed mixed results in five Hampton Roads cities. The story noted that in Newport News, violent crime had actually gone up by 40% between 2022 and 2023. 

• “A story that same month by the right-wing news site The Center Square noted that while cities like Hopewell, Norfolk, and Petersburg saw dramatic improvement on violent crime between 2022 and 2023, Hampton and Danville saw increased violent crime and Emporia saw a 48% increase.” 

It’s clear MAGA Miyares wants Virginians to believe he’s doing something about crime when in reality, it was nothing more than a political spin. It’s time to elect an AG who plans on actually protecting Virginians from crime. It’s time to elect Jay Jones. 

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