The lesson of NYC crime dropping is that ‘no bail’ – Latest News
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch launched new crime statistics indicating that, in comparison with final April, crime in New York City final month was down 9.5% total.
That is superb information, and kudos are attributable to her and to the women and men of the NYPD.
But earlier than we begin popping the champagne corks, we have now to know that evaluating statistics yr over yr obscures the true crime story in NYC.
You actually have to check crime in NYC pre-bail reform to crime post-bail reform.
Crime in NYC started its historic rise not final April however in 2019 when bail reform was handed, releasing 1000’s of profession criminals onto our streets.
While murders are down 14% from April 2019 to April 2026, robberies are up 8.8%, grand larcenies are up 9.4%, felony assaults up 50% and auto theft a whopping 171%.
We are seven years into this bail-reform “experiment,” and felony index crime total is up over 26% from what it was earlier than the law handed.
Reform deceit
It has failed miserably, however our legislators won’t ever admit it.
In truth, watch for them to start out utilizing these “declining” crime numbers to spice up even more silly “reforms” to our criminal-justice system, like “elder parole” and “timely parole release.”
Watch them begin to declare that bail reform was a success, ignoring the tons of more people killed and tens of 1000’s more victimized over the previous seven years as a end result of that misguided coverage.
Consider this: If crime had stayed on the identical 2019 price from 2020 by means of 2024, as a substitute of skyrocketing because it did, there would have been 600 fewer murders, 1,000 fewer rapes, 10,000 fewer robberies, 22,000 fewer felony assaults, 16,000 fewer burglaries, 10,000 fewer grand larcenies and 35,000 fewer car thefts in simply these 5 years.
Almost 100,000 fewer New Yorkers would have grow to be victims of felonies.
When bail reform was handed, metropolis jails held 7,800 inmates.
By Jan. 1, 2020, when the law took impact, the quantity of inmates had fallen to five,800, as more than 2,000 profession criminals have been launched with little to no supervision.
It fell to about 4,000 in April 2020, as town launched even more harmful criminals as a result of of COVID.
Predictably, crime soared.
The solely factor bringing crime down now is that the population in metropolis jails has risen, to about 6,600.
The profession, repeat offenders have managed to persuade even liberal NYC judges that they shouldn’t be on the streets.
Imagine what they needed to do to be able to accomplish that.
Rikers downside
But now Mayor Mamdani and the City Council are insisting on decreasing the population in metropolis jails by one other 2,200 inmates to be able to close Rikers.
You see, town is solely building 4,400 complete jail cells for a metropolis of 8.4 million.
Only absolutely the worst of the worst of the worst might be housed; all others might be launched.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our day by day Post Opinion publication!
Thanks for signing up!
We know from latest historical past that this received’t go nicely for the law-abiding.
When the NYPD dismantled a car-theft ring in The Bronx just lately, Tisch commented that if these arrested wind up not going to jail, all of the work of the NYPD and the Bronx District Attorney’s Office can have been for nothing.
Boy, is she proper.
The relaxation of our metropolis’s leaders ought to take that warning to coronary heart.
Jim Quinn is a retired profession prosecutor within the Queens District Attorney’s Office, the place he served for 42 years.
