New York Republicans are pinning their promised “red tsunami” in the 2022 elections to bail reform, and with voters saying they are worried about crime and frustrated with this issue, it just might work.

The GOP has been in lock-step in its criticism of the 2019 law, in effect for just more than a year, that instituted a “cashless bail” policy essentially imposing a set of rules over when judges are allowed to hold criminal suspects. The result is that many of the accused who once required sizable sums of money to be released now simply walk free until they are expected to appear for trial.

The reasoning for the law was two-fold, advocates for the bail reform effort say: Judges are now prevented from exercising personal biases when setting bail and the new policy addresses what the state senate’s majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, calls the “criminalization of poverty.”

In other words, it prevents judges from setting bail at different levels for the same crimes due to factors like gender or race, and helps to avoid some of the disastrous secondary consequences of not being able to meet bail, such as missing work. 

Since the law took effect in 2020, it has been subject to criticism by New York Republicans and others who argue that it puts citizens in danger because it forbids judges from weighing how dangerous a person is to the general public when setting bail.

“Instead of handcuffing our criminals we’re handcuffing justice, we’re handcuffing our judges, we’re handcuffing police,” the Republican nominee for governor, Representative Lee Zeldin, says.

Criticism has also been heard from more moderate members of the Democratic Party, such as Mayor Adams and another gubernatorial hopeful, Representative Tom Suozzi.

“By refusing to add a dangerousness standard and to give judges more discretion, Hochul is standing against common sense,” Mr. Suozzi said, referring to New York’s governor.

It’s worth noting that New York’s bail law “has never allowed for pretrial jailing based on predictions of future ‘dangerousness,’” according to a Democratic state senator, Brad Hoylman. 

This means that imposing any sort of “dangerousness standard” for bail in New York would not be a return to the pre-reform policy.

Mr. Adams, a former police captain who rode into the mayorship in part on promises of making New York a safer city — and who refers to his administration as one of “safety and justice” — has also come out in favor of revision to the 2019 law.

“We philosophically disagree on the impact of this small number of people who are using the bail system to perpetuate violence in communities like yours and mine,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Adams went to Albany earlier this month to advocate for changes to bail policy, but Albany lawmakers defended their legislation — in the process drawing criticism further from the right.

“Mayor Adams folded on bail reform like a cheap suit,” the New York Republican Party leader, Nick Langworthy, said of the visit. “Democrats are more concerned with their party’s radical, internal politics than the safety of 19 million New Yorkers.” 

Mr. Langworthy’s statement offers insights into the Republican strategy to gain ground in Albany in November.

“It should be crystal clear to every single voter that if you want to take our streets back from the criminals, you must vote Republican in this election,” Mr. Langowrthy continued.

There are a few key pieces of information to help understand the issue of bail reform from the perspective of a legislator and a voter.

Most people out on bail, cashless or otherwise, do not commit a crime before their trial, according to New York State Division of Technology and Court Research data.

Of the 284,096 total arraignments in New York State last year, 6,533 suspects, or 2.3 percent, were rearrested for a violent crime before trial.

Others argue that under bail reform, the number of people released who are rearrested is much higher. A former prosecutor and candidate for Queens borough president, James Quinn, has asserted that the number is actually 43 percent, not 2.3 percent.

Mr. Quinn’s statistic was calculated using data culled between July 1 and August 30, 2020 and could not be independently verified by the Sun, but it does point to drastically different points of view on the issue. Efforts to reach Mr. Quinn were unsuccessful.

Statistics aside, it is clear that those who do commit violent crimes while out on bail often get a lot of attention.

These include the recent high-profile arrest of Frank Abrokwa, who allegedly assaulted a woman on the subway and rubbed feces on her face. Mr. Abrokwa had been arrested multiple times before and is once again out of custody because judges were unable to hold him pending bail.

Instances like these are ready demonstrations of the downside of bail reform, while the benefits are not so easily seen. Such high-profile arrests also play into the public’s fear of crime.

In a February poll of New York State voters, “57 percent say they are very or somewhat concerned about being a victim of crime themselves,” pollster Steven Greenberg said. In New York City, that number is 71 percent. 

According to the New York City Police Department, total index crimes in the city rose 59 percent in February over the prior year, illustrating the idea that people’s fears are largely justified. 

“On one level, for any individual person in the city, the likelihood that they will be a victim of any particular crime is lower than their fear of that crime,” a public safety analyst, Hannah Meyers, told The New York Sun. “On another, I think that the perception of crime has gone up appropriately for the rise in crime.”

The public’s concern over crime is easily translated into discussion about the topic of bail reform.

“Nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers — including strong majorities of Republicans, independents, and Democrats, upstaters and downstaters — support amending the 2019 bail reform,” Mr. Greenberg said.

Governor Hochul so far remains opposed to revising the law.

“I’m looking for the data that shows me that bail reform is the reason that somehow crime is going up,” Ms. Hochul said. “I’m focused on what I have control over right now.”

If she maintains her position, and Republicans successfully make 2022 a referendum on bail reform, they have a chance to make good on their promise of a “red tsunami.”