Democrat-run major cities are continuing to lose police officers amid ongoing efforts to favor criminal behavior over law enforcement, a Thursday report noted.

In 2023, New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, Austin, and Washington, D.C., all of which are run by Democrats, had approximately 1,500 fewer law enforcement officers on staff compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Daily Caller analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2019 and 2023 Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll.

In these cities, police departments decreased in size as they were unable to reduce the increase in homicide rates, which occurred alongside the COVID-19 pandemic and the wave of racial justice movements seeking to reform law enforcement following the death of George Floyd.

Portland had a homicide rate of 13.2 per 100,000 residents, which is an almost 140% increase from its pre-pandemic rate of 5.5 per 100,000, according to Census and city data. During the same period, the number of police officers in Portland decreased by 183 between 2019 and 2023, dropping from 911 to just 728.

Portland, responding to pressure from racial justice activists in 2020, cut police funding by $15 million and eliminated 84 police officer positions, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. After these cuts, homicides in Portland increased by 83%, one of the highest rises among major cities that year, as reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting. At the time, Dem Mayor Ted Wheeler agreed to the cuts but reversed himself a year later and tried to restore some funding.

In 2020, D.C. reduced its budget by $15 million in response to racial justice activists. Census data shows that D.C. had 113 fewer officers on payroll in 2023 compared to 2019. The homicide rate in the nation’s capital was 72% higher in 2023 than in 2019, rising from 23.5 to 40.4 murders per 100,000 residents, according to police and Census data.

New York City, which has the largest police department in the country, lost 843 officers between 2019 and 2023, according to Census data. Additionally, New York, along with Portland and D.C., has been unsuccessful in reducing its homicide rate to levels seen before the pandemic.

The homicide rate in New York City, measured per 100,000 inhabitants, is 23% higher than it was in 2019, as reported by municipal and Census data. The New York Police Department (NYPD) is currently understaffed, leading to concerns about public safety, according to the NYC Police Benevolent Association in their statement from March.