OPINION:
Start spreading the news — New York City is rampant with crime and only getting worse. People are being pushed from subway platforms, theft has gone wild, stores have been set ablaze, and innocent bystanders are being assaulted and battered without provocation. But Tuesday’s subway shootings in Brooklyn leaving 29 people injured — including 10 who were shot — marks a tragic and terrifying breaking point for a city that has been on the brink with fear amid rising crime.
Statistics released on March 4 indicate a staggering 60% increase in NYC crime from the same time period last year. Grand larceny escalated by 79%, robbery 56% and felony assault 22%. Auto theft more than doubled. NYPD officials have been anything but shy about what’s happening.
“We’re in different times, now. This is not a spike. It’s not a trend. We’re in a crime surge right now,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told a local ABC News affiliate last month. Mr. Boyce gave accolades to police for making arrests, but blamed prosecutors for undercharging crimes.
“They’re downgrading crimes to misdemeanor status and then letting them out,” he said. “You can’t hold anybody under the bail reform laws for misdemeanors.”
Much of the recent spotlight in NYC has shined on Alvin Bragg, the newly elected district attorney from Manhattan, the neighboring borough across the river from Brooklyn, Kings County. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said in January that Mr. Bragg is “handcuffing the police” while attributing his election victory to George Soros, saying the billionaire has “effectively destroyed the criminal justice system in America.”
Just days after New Year’s when Mr. Bragg took office, Mr. Bratton summarized Mr. Bragg’s policies as a “recipe for disaster,” adding that, “you don’t address the issues of the past by effectively decriminalizing just about everything in New York City.”
Mr. Bratton is referring to Mr. Bragg’s shift in prosecutorial discretion that was outlined in a Jan. 3 staff memo that instructed line prosecutors to seek “diversion and alternatives to incarceration,” reducing pre-trial jail time and limiting youth being tried as adults — policy changes that Brooklyn’s Eric Gonzalez also implemented since he came into office in 2017.
According to The New York Times, Mr. Gonzalez “pledged to bring a modern, progressive approach — a prosecutor’s healing touch — to a criminal justice system that has long been seen as a source of inequity. But as he begins his second term, stubborn increases in shootings, gang violence and other crimes have focused the city’s attention on public safety and complicated Mr. Gonzalez’s ability to fulfill that pledge.”
Since taking office, Mr. Bragg has declined to prosecute a list of lower-level “broken window” crimes that often give police probable cause to conduct searches, helping them preempt and prevent greater crimes. Some of those crimes include consensually engaging in the sex trade, fare violations, marijuana misdemeanors, trespassing and resisting arrest.
The Manhattan chief prosecutor has made the case that, with limited correctional resources, “reserving incarceration for matters involving significant harm will make us safer,” a point that sounds reasonable on the surface, but that Mr. Bratton has disputed because of its impact on police procedures.
“The DA is effectively handcuffing the police,” Mr. Bratton retorted, accusing the chief prosecutor of “removing so many tools out of the toolbox … that we know kept New York safe for the last 30 years.”
New York is only one of many cities with prosecutors implementing progressive prosecutorial policies. In the past 12 years, Mr. Soros has directed millions of dollars into prosecutorial campaigns across the country obtaining victories in major cities across the nation.
But those jurisdictions have not seen a reduction in crime. Reasonable criminal justice reform has merit since it is paramount to uphold the constitutional rights of the accused. But victims also have rights, and at the moment, time is running out for the innocent.
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