The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, recently returned to Albany to urge state officials to reconsider bail-reform measures passed in 2019. While being mayor of NYC comes with media attention, the real power lies in the state capital where the governor and Legislature hold major sway over everything from the subways to public schools.
Adams argued that soft-on-crime policies hit poor communities the hardest, not only in terms of public safety but also economically. The mayor also pushed back at the argument made by social-justice advocates that arresting and prosecuting lawbreakers is tantamount to “criminalizing” poverty.
Furthermore, crime is costing the city jobs and businesses. New Yorkers are losing businesses, and as a result, are unemployed because of repeat offenders who make a mockery of the criminal justice system. The belief that poverty is the root cause of crime may be popular, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Most poor people aren’t criminals, and crime rates were lower during the Great Depression when Americans were significantly poorer than they are today.
Mangual writes that between 1990 and 2018, murders in New York City declined by 87%, during which the city’s poverty rate increased slightly. Adams believes that public safety is a prerequisite for prosperity and stressed that the problem isn’t previously law-abiding New Yorkers turning to crime but career criminals running rampant with no fear of being prosecuted.
Crime is disproportionately being driven by a limited number of extreme recidivists, approximately 2,000 people who commit crimes repeatedly while out on bail.
Decriminalizing theft significantly increases the cost of opening and operating a business, especially in high-crime neighbourhoods. Lenders are more reluctant to extend credit, insurance premiums are higher, and security is more expensive. Adams understands that crime victims shouldn’t be an afterthought and that new businesses are less likely to open in unsafe neighbourhoods where the police can’t be counted on to protect private property.
The mayor is fighting the good fight, but he’s outnumbered by progressive Democrats who are more concerned with racial parity in punishment than with safe streets. Cities such as New York and Philadelphia and Chicago have essentially manufactured a crime wave, and no one knows when it will crest.
»Eric Adams urges state officials to reconsider bail-reform measures«
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