It’s no secret that New York is undergoing a crime wave, with violent crime rising at alarming rates. What’s also not a secret is the steps that are needed to reverse this onslaught and return the city to the state of safety for which it rightfully had become so proud. The New York “Miracle” that brought crime rates to record lows during the 1990s and kept them there for the ensuing 20 years was not a miracle at all, but rather a series of measures that experience has proven to reduce crime.
The undoing of some of these policies by officials as part of the state’s so-called bail reform, a lack of availability of mental health treatment for so many of the city’s most vulnerable citizens, and some of the city’s district attorneys refusing to prosecute criminals, has led to the state of lawlessness. A miracle isn’t required to improve New York’s public safety. What is needed is the political courage from politicians to admit that the so-called reforms they implemented are contributing to the crime wave and that changes are necessary if the uptick is to be ended.
First, New York’s bail reform law that went into effect in 2020 needs to be amended so that judges can set bail for, or remand without bail, dangerous defendants and recidivists. The present bail reform statute was implemented because of a belief that the existing law penalized lower-income defendants, essentially making them prisoners of poverty, held in custody not because they presented a danger to society but because they couldn’t afford to make bail. Although the equitable intentions of this bail reform law were noble, the new statute requires judges to release without bail nearly all criminal defendants, save those charged with a handful of violent felonies. Judges are powerless to consider the danger a defendant poses to society or the likelihood that the defendant will engage in further criminality upon release.
The news over the past two years has been replete with stories of defendants who were released pursuant to the bail reform statute and immediately returned to criminal behavior. A commonsense change to the law would allow a judge to set bail for, or remand without bail, defendants who are dangerous or are likely to offend again. This measure would balance the interest of not penalizing lower-income defendants who are simply unable to pay bail but are not likely to be recidivists, with the interest of protecting society from dangerous criminals.
Second, the city is facing a crisis of homelessness and people suffering from untreated mental illness. The lack of treatment has caused some of these people to slip into criminal behavior, ranging from petty offenses to hate crimes to homicides. In my tenure as a New York Police Department officer, I routinely encountered perpetrators suffering from untreated mental illness that had slipped through the cracks of society until they committed a crime. When we examine the crisis of quality-of-life crime in the subway system, overwhelmingly we see perpetrators who are homeless and suffering from mental health problems and who have taken up residence in the subway system as a last resort. When we investigate the rash of people being pushed in front of subway trains, a commonality is that nearly all of these perpetrators are afflicted with a severe mental illness.
In my tenure as a detective in NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, nearly every perpetrator I arrested for committing a hate crime was enduring mental illness Many were homeless. Investment in services that provide housing and outpatient mental health treatment would constitute a great step in reducing the population of homeless people suffering from mental illness that slip into criminal behavior. These resources are severely lacking in the city. While critics might bemoan the cost of such programs, the reality is that we are already indirectly paying the cost through increased policing and criminal justice services and through a diminished quality of life for New Yorkers. In the long run, providing comprehensive treatment for homeless people suffering from mental illness is both the moral and the cost-effective pathway to address this crisis and reduce crime.
Finally, the city’s district attorneys need to implement a commonsense approach to prosecution in order to protect the public from dangerous or recidivist criminals. Although New York City Mayor Eric Adams has expressed a willingness to return the city’s policing policy to the Broken Windows style that was so effective at lowering crime rates in the 1990s, police action is meaningless without criminal prosecution by the city’s district attorneys. At the moment, commonsense prosecutorial policy is sorely lacking in much of the city. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has endorsed a policy of nonincarceration, even for many violent criminals.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez have garnered notoriety over the past two years for their refusal to prosecute many felony cases. Blanket refusals to prosecute criminals send the message that there are no consequences for criminal activity. The failure to remove dangerous criminals from the streets enables them to offend again, further endangering the public.
Numerous news stories in recent months have covered violent criminals whom prosecutors had refused to incarcerate returning to criminal behavior upon their release. Wise prosecutorial policy should evaluate cases to assess which perpetrators clearly need to be removed from society to protect the public and which do not. Blanket nonprosecution policies that decline to protect the public are not the answer.
These policy changes can return the city to a state of safety and eliminate the crime wave sweeping through New York’s streets. But they require that politicians have the political courage to acknowledge that previously enacted reforms need to be modified. Do New York’s politicians have that courage? A crime-ridden city is waiting to find out.
Kenneth O’Donnell is a New York-based attorney. He is a former NYPD detective and a former assistant district attorney.
