In many cities around the United States, we’ve already seen the damaging impact that so-called “bail reform” laws have had on society. By installing revolving doors in the jails, there are more criminals out on the streets at any given time, generally when there are fewer police left on the job to chase them. And even the police we have left on the force frequently complain of being dispirited when they go through the work of apprehending one of the bad guys and bringing them in, only to have the suspect “beat them back to the neighborhood” by the time they finish filling out all of the paperwork.
But what of the cases where the cops actually do get a charge to stick and the perpetrator is held (at least for a while) and taken before a judge? That must at least provide some measure of encouragement to the police, right? Well… that depends on where you live and who is installed in key law enforcement positions. Among the most important figure in every region is the lead District Attorney. That’s the person who sets departmental policy for how various suspects will be charged. There are many horrible ones around the country these days, but few sink to the level of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. We’ve covered plenty of Bragg’s antics here in the past, but a recent study shows that he’s probably even worse than we suspected. As it turns out, more than half of the New York defendants initially charged with felony offenses had their charges downgraded to misdemeanors this year. And those downgrades led to the assumed felons being back on the streets very quickly indeed. Check out this depressing report from the Washington Times.
New York County’s top prosecutor has downgraded slightly more than half of all felony cases to misdemeanors in 2022, compared to 39% in 2019, according to new data.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made criminal justice reform a key part of his 2021 campaign and directed staff to downgrade certain felonies so defendants wouldn’t face as much jail time.
A “day one” memo on downgrading charges resulted in a backlash from city police, and the district attorney backed off some changes.
Other data shows that Bragg declined to prosecute felony crimes 35% more often than was seen in 2019. And even when Bragg’s office did somehow manage to charge someone with a felony, they only brought home a conviction 51% of the time. Three years earlier the conviction rate for felonies was almost 70%.
This is a problem that everyone is aware of but there seems to be no willingness to do anything about it, so Alvin Bragg apparently has no fear of continuing on his usual path. Even the Mayor of New York City said earlier this year that New York City’s prosecutors are “the laughingstock of the country.” And those are just the prosecutors that they have left. Since Bragg took office, prosecutors have been quitting in droves.
Back in January, Governor Kathy Hochul finally caved to the pressure and scheduled a private meeting with Alvin Bragg where she reportedly “put him on notice” about doing his job and enforcing the law. Under New York State laws, Bragg can’t be recalled, but the state constitution gives the Governor the power to dismiss a District Attorney who refuses to do their job. Bragg reportedly came away from the meeting with a new commitment to his job. Looking at the numbers above, you can see how well that worked out.
Unfortunately, as I already pointed out, Alvin Bragg is far from alone at the bottom of the prosecutorial barrel. Other Democrat-run cities have district attorneys who are just as bad if not worse, assuming you can imagine that. Once in a while, we get lucky and one of them is so atrocious that they wind up being recalled, as we saw in San Francisco. But that’s a steep hill to climb and others skate free after a recall attempt. That’s what happened in Los Angeles this year. In too many other cities the attempt is never even made.
The larger point here is that having enough cops on the beat and a city that actually supports their efforts to maintain order is clearly a good thing. But it’s not enough. The tree may have started rotting at the root, but the infection now goes much further up the line. Arresting double the number of serious, violent criminals isn’t going to make much of a difference if they are either immediately released or have their charges lowered to the point where they’ll be back out on the street within days if not hours.
Voters in cities where people are afraid to leave their own homes at night have a responsibility to rebuild the culture of the justice system. Tolerance for soft-on-crime DAs and prosecutors can’t be tolerated. Everyone from the cops on the beat to the DA’s office to the judges on the bench needs to believe that law-abiding citizens deserve to live in a place where it’s safe to go out to the store or to their jobs without fear of falling prey to criminals at any given moment. And those officials are the only people who can make that happen. When the gang members realize that the long arm of the law is back in action in a serious way, crime rates will fall. But that won’t happen unless there is a demand that comes from the grassroots and shows up in large numbers at the ballot box if these people continue to refuse to do their jobs.
