Before a local television station posted the shocking video of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Irnya Zarutska being stabbed in the neck and killed by repeat felon Decarlos Brown, Vi Lyles, the mayor of Charlotte, where the murder took place, said her city’s transit system was “by and large” safe and “we will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health.”

Lyles was right, up to a point. If we simply arrest violent felons and don’t keep them behind bars, there is no way arrests can contribute to safety on public transportation. But if Democratic-controlled cities such as Charlotte had more effective and accountable criminal justice systems that kept Brown and other similar offenders locked up, arresting our way to safety would be entirely possible.

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Brown was on the Lynx Blue Line light-rail train on Aug. 22 when Zarutska boarded at 9:46 p.m. She sat in the seat in front of Brown, which meant her back was to him. Four minutes after she took her seat, he stabbed her three times in the neck, completely unprovoked, and killed her. 

Brown had a long rap sheet. He had been arrested 14 times since 2011, including for armed robbery with a deadly weapon, for which he was jailed under a five-year sentence through 2020. Most recently, he was arrested this January for making false emergency calls to 911. He was released from custody on a “written promise” to return for a court hearing, but he broke that promise and failed to show up.

Zarutska was far from the only innocent person victimized on public transportation recently. In December last year, a woman was set on fire and killed by an illegal immigrant from Guatemala on the F Train in New York City. The next month, a single assailant stabbed two men at stations in Manhattan and the Bronx. The attacker had more than 80 prior arrests on his rap sheet, but was somehow still free. In San Francisco, an elderly woman was pushed to her death by an attacker who had been arrested more than a dozen times for assault and battery.

The federal government sends billions of taxpayer dollars to Democratic-controlled cities such as Charlotte every year for public transportation construction and maintenance. President Donald Trump should demand that they make their transportation systems safe in return.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in February ordered that funding priority be given to areas with higher birth rates than the national average. The details were fuzzy, but a similar policy for safety would be a good idea, and Duffy appeared to be open to it. After the video of Zarutska was made public, Duffy said, “This monster had a track record longer than a CVS receipt, including prison time for robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, and larceny. By failing to properly punish him, Charlotte failed Iryna Zarutska and North Carolinians. This is totally unacceptable! Safety needs to be the top priority of elected officials. Citizens don’t want federal dollars going to public transportation that local leaders refuse to keep safe!”

The federal government has long used transportation dollars to force states to change safety laws. The Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Dole has allowed the feds to deny highway funds to states that refuse to raise their minimum drinking age. What the federal government has already done with minimum drinking age laws, Congress should also do to hold cities accountable for allowing repeat offenders to terrorize travelers.

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North Carolina has a habitual felon statute that allows prosecutors to request enhanced sentencing for repeat offenders, but it leaves too much discretion in the hands of liberal district attorneys and judges who have proved incapable of making the necessary decisions to keep violent repeat offenders off trains and buses. Congress could set a national standard, perhaps a three-strikes law like Florida’s, and force soft-on-crime Democrats to get serious about keeping commuters safe or lose their transportation dollars.

Spending money on unsafe public transportation systems wastes money because citizens will avoid them. Zarutska’s death was preventable. It happened because a broken justice system let a man known to be dangerous roam free. Federal policymakers already condition transportation funds on state compliance with national standards. They should do the same with criminal justice. If Democrat-run cities want billions of dollars in federal support, they should be required to enforce tougher habitual offender laws. Only by ensuring dangerous criminals are kept behind bars can public transportation be made safe for the innocent people who depend on it.