Crime wave in New York by Sean Hayes, 2021 candidate for NYC Council? Another troubling statistic was the surge in hate crimes targeting Asian New Yorkers. The city saw 31 such incidents in March 2021, averaging out to one per day; there were none recorded at the same time last year. The NYPD’s stats marked the first year-to-year comparison between months impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus was first officially detected in New York City on March 1, 2020, and within about two weeks, ordinary life in the five boroughs practically ceased as schools and businesses shut down en masse, and people confined themselves at home.
According to a report released by the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice in January, between 95% and 97% of the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who were arrested and charged with a crime in 2020 were not rearrested for another crime while awaiting their case. Of the group who were rearrested after being released without bail, less than 1% were charged with a violent felony. Of the roughly 9,000 New Yorkers awaiting trial on a violent felony charge in September of 2020, 96% were not rearrested on any charge, and 99% were not arrested for another violent felony, according to the report. These figures have remained steady before and after bail reform was passed. “There isn’t a viable, reliable connection between, these folks are being released pretrial, and these are the same folks who are going out picking up guns and committing shootings and other serious crimes,” said Krystal Rodriguez, the deputy director of jail reform at the Center for Court Innovation. If anything, New York’s judges increased the number of cases in which they set bail in the latter half of 2020, a rise that a Center for Court Innovation study attributes in part to “unsupported claims from public officials, amplified in the media, that bail reform was a primary factor in New York City’s spike in shootings and murders in 2020.”
Election of Brooklyn’s District Attorney Eric Gonzales and other pro-reactionary radical criminal-justice reform movement prosecutors led to the decriminalization of many crimes, the emboldening of criminals and the acquiescing to bail, by prosecutors, in all but the most exceptional of cases. This led to an increase of dangerous suspects and convicts on our streets. Judges are prohibited, in New York, from considering the dangerousness of a suspect when granting bail, thus, without cash bail or a change in the powers of our judges, we are stuck with releasing to our streets those that prosecutors and judges know are a danger to the community. Discover more information on Crime Reduction & Safe Streets Program New York 2021.
We can understand that from the closure of business because of pandemic restrictions we shall see a decrease in armed robberies, since many stores, banks and other businesses with cash were not open. However, the rise in homicides and shootings has no logical connection to the change in situations. What is the argument? Maybe we can understand an increase based on the increase in drug use during the pandemic, but the doubling of shootings is not something that can be just explained away – without argument.
Sean Hayes a 47-year old NY Attorney; Head of an International Law Firm; former lawyer working in China, Korea & Southeast Asia; former Professor, CEO, Dean of a UN University and Journalist fears that our City shall turn to the Dark Days of the 80s and early 90s, because of reactionary and radicalized politics in New York and the lack of experience, pragmatism, and problem-solving skills of our politicians. Sean is running in the Democratic Primary for City Council in District 1. Sean is blessed, at this stage in his life, with the ability, experience and resources to serve his community and he feels that if he doesn’t step forward and fight to turn our politics back to the center, this great city is doomed to return to the Dark Days. Sean believes that in these Post-Bloomberg Days our politicians, in New York City Government, moved away from pragmaticism and towards identity politics, the cancel culture, socialism and national polarizing issues that are harming the people of New York. Find even more information on https://www.seanhayes4nyc.com/.