In most of the nation, setting bail not only helps ensure criminals make their court dates, but also serves as a deterrent to more criminal activity. After all, one can’t victimize innocent, law-abiding Americans when you’re in jail. And being re-arrested while you’re waiting for trial might just forfeit your bond.
New York State, however, has a new “no cash bail” law that took effect January 1 (because posting bail is racist or classist or something). The results have not been pretty.
Stories about of serial bad guys repeatedly walking out of jail without posting a thin dime for bail. Only to commit more crimes. From the New York Post:
Robbery is up almost 30% in New York City since the first of the year. Is this a statistical blip, a trend — or a New Year’s bail-reform gift from Albany, robbery now largely being a revolving-door offense in the Empire State?
Time will tell, but consider this as well: According to the latest NYPD stats, the number of shooting victims in the city is up 31% since New Year’s Day — so at the very least Gotham appears to be off to a rocky 2020 compared to last year.
Which should not surprise: Not only does government usually get more of what it encourages, when it comes to crime, it also gets more of what it fails to discourage.
Sad to say, New York falls down on both counts.
One judge refused to abide by the new law and held a bad guy on $10,000 cash bail anyway. Of course, the judge was over-ruled. And the bad guy? He left jail with an ankle monitor…only to chop it off and run away Scot free. Really.
From the New York Post.
A Long Island judge intentionally ignored the state’s controversial bail-reform law and refused to release a defendant he deemed a “menace to society,” The Post has learned.
Nassau County District Judge David McAndrews admitted in court that accused two-time bank robber Romell Nellis wasn’t charged with a “bondable or bail offense” — but still ordered him held on $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond.
“I don’t want you walking around my neighborhood,” McAndrews told Nellis, according to a transcript of the Jan. 9 hearing in Hempstead.
But McAndrew’s principled stand was short-lived, as a higher-level judge promptly reversed his order and released Nellis with an ankle monitor — only to have him cut it off and disappear.
Then there’s the guy who allegedly kept committing bank robberies, one after another, dumbfounded that New York kept letting him out of jail after each arrest.
Finally, after six arrests, the feds took the case. It’s the latest in progressive criminal justice reform.
https://youtu.be/nGbImZkiB5A
Bail “reform” has been such a rousing success in the Empire State that others are flirting with various degrees of the same policy. States like…wait for it…California and Illinois, for example.
These new soft-on-crime social justice “reforms” don’t lower crime. In fact, they have precisely the opposite effect as has been so clearly demonstrated in New York since the first of the year.
These bail “reform” social justice experiments should serve the latest of many reasons to carry your personal defense tools with you each and every day. Assuming you live in a jurisdiction where that’s allowed.
