Bail Reform Is Front and Center as Hochul Budget Comes Due

Governor Hochul’s first and possibly only state budget needs to be passed by Friday, in what could prove a make or break moment for the Democrat. With $216 billion on the table, New Yorkers are eyeing one item above everything else, the state’s bail laws.New York’s initial bail reform effort was passed in 2019, yet the issue is now central to New York politics and could dog Ms. Hochul in the 2022 elections.Advocates of the bail system changes argue that they have decriminalized poverty and helped cut down on mass incarceration. Opponents believe they have succeeded only in releasing known criminals back onto the streets faster, helping to increase crime rates.An analysis published by the Brennan Center argues that the bail law protects the presumption of innocence and that the spike in crime in New York is part of a national trend.“The law aimed to reduce the risk that someone would be jailed because they could not afford to pay for release and reduce the unnecessary use of incarceration, which can have a profoundly disruptive effect on peoples’ lives,” analysts Ames Grawert and Noah Kim wrote.Supporters of the law often point out that a small number of all people released under the new bail law then commit violent felonies, around 2 percent.Meanwhile, they argue, many New Yorkers who would have previously been detained pretrial — often resulting in missed work, rent, or other consequences — are not punished before hearing a verdict.Opponents of the law point to a different statistic: Of people arraigned on a felony charge with a prior or pending conviction and subsequently released on cashless bail, roughly 40 percent are rearrested. Of those rearrested, nearly 15 percent are on violent felony charges — almost 6 percent of all alleged felons with prior or pending charges.One critic of the bail law, James Quinn, a former assistant district attorney in Queens, believes New York’s bail laws have hurt the people that they were designed to help.“It was also sold that poor and minority defendants were being jailed at a higher rate,” Mr. Quinn told The New York Sun. “It was never really studied.”“The overwhelming majority of crime victims in this city are poor minorities,” he added. “But nobody cares.”Governor Hochul is in an election season where voters are acutely aware of the issue, and this year’s state budget may be her last best chance to address it.A Siena College poll released Monday found that 64 percent of New Yorkers believe that the state’s bail laws have resulted in more crime and 56 percent of voters believe it has been bad for the state.The same poll found 82 percent of voters want to “give judges more discretion to set bail based on the seriousness of the crime or the individual’s criminal record.”Meanwhile, 56 percent of voters are “concerned that giving judges discretion to set bail will result in poor people and people of color being unfairly incarcerated.”While some may see these polling results as contradictory at times, they demonstrate that New York voters are both aware of and opinionated about the issue of bail reform.Ms. Hochul, facing pressure from voters, the New York Republican Party, and Democrats such as Representative Tom Suozzi and Mayor Adams, has reportedly proposed some changes to New York’s bail laws.The full story of her stance will likely come out in the final state budget due to be passed Friday — the only time Ms. Hochul will be able to use her spending decisions to demonstrate her values and effectiveness as a governor before the 2022 elections.With Republicans gearing up to make the gubernatorial election a referendum on bail reform, any budgetary movement on bail laws, or lack thereof, will be squarely under the microscope.

Bail Reform Is Front and Center as Hochul Budget Comes Due

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