Judge Judy delivers scathing verdict about America's out-of-control crime - as she rips 'ridiculous' liberal policies

Liberal district attorneys have left America's cities 'ruined' and would be better employed 'filling ice-cream cones', according to Judge Judy.

The veteran reality TV star said the country is in worse shape than it was 30 years ago because 'a small group of people who have very loud voices created a scenario where bad people got rewarded'.

And she lashed out at a culture that increasingly excuses people's behavior on the basis of their background.

'Oh I know how we got here,' she told Fox News Digital.

'When society started to make excuses for bad behavior, and react to criminality based upon the excuses, it fell apart.'

Judge Judy said a 'small group of people who have very loud voices created a scenario where bad people got rewarded'

The veteran reality TV star reflected on how society had deteriorated since the start of her on-screen career 30 years ago

Judy, real name Judy Sheindlin, spoke out after Portland DA Mike Schmidt became the latest of the liberal prosecutors elected in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement to lose their jobs.

'When you have district attorneys who are charged, whose job it is to do justice, but to keep the community safe, when you have elected district attorneys who don't know what their job is, they should go find another job,' she said.

'Fill ice cream cones someplace. But don't ruin cities.

'And what's happened around New York City, Portland, San Francisco, you had district attorneys who didn't know what their job was. And the cities are ruined, people are leaving.'

Robberies are up 5.2 percent in New York City so far this year and while recorded hate crimes have jumped 11 per cent.

In Portland, larceny offenses jumped to more than 26,000 in the year to April, while arrests for prostitution more than doubled amid an ongoing drugs and homelessness crisis.

Homicides jumped by 35 percent in DC last year while robberies were up 67 percent, and in San Francisco, DA Chesa Boudin lost his job in a 2022 recall election after securing just three drug convictions the previous year.

Liberal DA was defeated in his Portland re-election bid last week by 'tough on crime' opponent Nathan Vasquez after being elected with 77 percent of the vote in 2020

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin lost a 2022 recall election after securing just three drug convictions the previous year 

Sheindlin lashed out at New York's 2019 decision to raise the minimum age at which a suspect to be tried as an adult to 18, branding it 'ridiculous'.

'If you have family, if you have a mother who's 65 years old who's walking to the grocery store and some crazy for no reason hits her over the head with a steel pipe and kills her, and they're 17, that person should never be allowed to walk the street again, because society can't take a chance,' she said.

'If I wouldn't take a chance on him living next to me why would I take a chance on him living next to you?

'You're just as dead as somebody 18 kills you, or 17.

'And if you're 17 years old and kill somebody, you don't belong with kids who are 12, in a juvenile facility.

'But a very small group of people pushed through in New York State, for instance, raising the level of criminal responsibility.'

And she insisted the explanations for why a person becomes a criminal should never be confused with excuses.

'You know there is always a reason for criminal behavior,' she said.

'Didn't have a good upbringing, didn't have two parents in the house, didn't have one parent in the house, there's always a reason.

Progressive Chicago DA Kim Foxx (left) was replaced in March, and Los Angeles DA George Gascon, the self-described 'Godfather of progressive prosecutors' faces a stiff re-election challenge from Republican hardliner Nathan Hochman

'You're mentally ill. That's a reason. You took drugs, that's a reason. You took alcohol, your brain is fried, whatever it is.

'There is never an excuse for bad behavior.'

And she reflected on how the situation has deteriorated since she began her TV career.

'Here we are, 30 years later, and are we in a worse shape as a country, as a world, than we were in 1993? You bet your bottom we are.

'I think we better get smarter before we get lost,' she said. 'Permanently lost.'