The big criminal justice reform news in New York City this week was the state government’s change to the controversial 2019 revision of the state’s bail laws.
Many placed the principal blame for the city’s 2020 crime spike on the 2019 revision precluding judges from setting cash bail for a number of misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. These were euphemistically referred to as “less serious” crimes, yet the “less serious” label covered such things as burglary, stalking assault without serious injury, various drug offenses, and some acts of arson and robbery.
Additionally, the 2019 law also restricted judges in their determination of a defendant’s “dangerousness” in deciding whether to set bail.The predictable backlash from a horrified public and law enforcement officials concerned about allowing potentially dangerous criminals to roam the city streets – free to commit further crimes – led to some initial changes in 2020 which included broadening the definition of “serious” and empowering judges to consider the accused’s criminal history in imposing bail even when the charges did not involve violence.
The new law makes some positive, albeit not tectonic, changes. While judges are still to be limited by the amorphous “least restricted” standard when trying to ensure that a defendant returns to court and cannot rely solely on his or her “dangerousness,” judges can take into account whether or not the accused is charged with causing “serious harm” to a victim or whether he or she has a history of using or possessing a gun. The new law also adds to the list of crimes for which bail may be set, including even “minor” offenses when committed by repeat offenders.
Sadly, however, the changes are plainly the stuff of compromise and the emphasis is still not on ensuring that what has to be done to effectively address rampant crime will be undertaken. We still seem to be shackled by an ideology that dispenses with what has worked in the past, either because enforcement disproportionately targeted minorities or because of “bad apple” police officers. Yet there are no statistics demonstrating that minorities are being singled out, nor that enhanced training and discipline wouldn’t be an internal solution for law enforcement.
One would think that, given the spike in crime that followed closely on the heels of the 2019 bail revisions, the presumption would be that the former was the cause of the latter. The burden of proof, surely, would be on those who claim the lack of any connection. Yet for the “woke” folks that control the legislature in Albany, the touchtone and foremost concern for all public policy-making is the elimination of any and all threats – real or imagined – to minority equality. And they simply and casually deny any connection.
Moreover, as an article in the New York Post reports, the lawmakers in Albany who passed the bail reform law in 2019 apparently never thought to require state agencies to perform an official baseline analysis of how the old bail law worked as compared with the 2019 one. And they have reportedly refused to order one now.
In sum, they certainly have produced no compelling evidence that the new law had no impact on the current crime surge. On the contrary: according to The Post, the law’s opponents have shown that overall, crime this year is up by 45% over last year. This includes a 60% rise in grand larceny and an 85% rise in car theft – two charges for which judges were not allowed to set bail under the 2019 law.
Although welcoming the bail law as a positive step, Mayor Eric Adams says it is only a beginning. There have to be many further enhancements and a change in attitude to a full-throated effort at crime prevention.
We agree.
