We recently looked at some new proposals for fixing New York’s disastrous new “bail reform” law or at least mitigating some of the damage it’s causing. They may want to get off the stick and start looking at those suggestions in a hurry because a newly released report shows that major crimes in New York City took a very sharp turn upward in February as compared to the same period of time last year. And the police have the data to show that the bail reform policies are playing a significant role in this very bad development. (Daily Mail)
New York City saw a big increase in crime last month compared to the same period in 2019.
Major crimes grew 22.5% in February according to the NYPD with a 7.1% increase in shootings. robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto crimes.
Murders, however, fell some 20% with 20 people killed in the Big Apple during February.
Police are blaming recent criminal justice reforms for the rise in crime, according to Fox5.
So the news isn’t entirely bad. Murders were down 20% and there was a slight drop in rapes in February (125 versus 133 in February of 2019). But that only goes to support the explanation being offered by the NYPD. Murders, attempted murders and rapes aren’t eligible for the no-bail, criminal revolving door program (thank God), at least not yet.
But the numbers for crimes that do qualify for no-bail release went in the opposite direction. The report shows that no less than 482 people who were arrested for committing a felony were then rearrested for committing an additional 846 crimes in January and February. More than one-third of those incidents (299) were crimes that fell into one of the seven major crimes categories of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto.
By this point, the numbers have become too stark to ignore. This isn’t some sort of “scare tactic” as liberal supporters of the new law constantly insist. And it isn’t a case of the police trying to stir up trouble for the unpopular mayor. This is a documented 22.5% increase in major crimes for the month of February in a single year, and that is far outside of the normal fluctuations you tend to see from year to year.
Combining those facts, the story becomes clear and we can no longer deny that the new bail reform law is the largest factor. Heck, even the Mayor previously was forced to admit that it was the “only significant new factor” to explain the increase in crime. This law isn’t just “giving oppressed minorities a chance at freedom from a system of mass incarceration” as its proponents so often say. It’s taking known criminals and dumping them back out on the streets in droves, where they immediately return to their usual routines.
This was an experiment in so-called “social justice” that was predicted to fail by law enforcement and sane analysts and it’s lived up to those predictions in a spectacular fashion. It’s time to stop tinkering around with it and simply repeal it before Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo manage to turn back the clock in Gotham to the bad old days of the late 80s and early 90s. Maybe now that Bloomberg is out of the presidential race you could bring him back for another spin. For all of his faults, he at least kept the crime rates down in the basement.