Earlier this week, our Assembly and Senate Minority Conferences hosted a press conference at the Capitol renewing our call for increased public safety measures and a repeal of previously-passed bail laws. We were joined by family members of crime victims, crime victim advocates and members of law enforcement who all agree this Legislature must act on the issue of rising crime. As a matter of fact, we have seen crime steadily increase in our major cities across the state since the new bail and discovery laws were enacted in 2019. A recent Siena poll showed that 55% of the Majority political party and 78% of the Minority political party view crime in New York as a ‘serious issue’. The governor knows it’s a major problem that people across the political spectrum want addressed, but will she take meaningful action?

In her State of the State address, the governor talked about making tweaks to bail reform laws. First of all, we need more than a few tweaks, but even the mention of making changes drew fire from her Majority colleagues in the room who make up the legislative Majorities. Make no mistake, this governor has enacted pro-criminal policies and helped foster the culture of crime across our state, but Majority lawmakers in the Legislature have been even more extreme. They called increased crime a “Minority conspiracy”, really? At Monday’s press conference we heard from a woman named Tammy Patrick; her father, John Lee, was murdered by an assailant who was let out on bail just a day earlier after he had committed a violent assault. It is tragic that we continue to hear stories like Tammy’s all across our state. While none of us can completely end all crimes, we have tools at our disposal to change the trajectory and stop emboldened repeat offenders.

One of our main sticking points in the Minority Conference is to return judicial discretion to the courtroom. We often cite it, but it bears repeating— New York is the only state in the nation that does not allow for such discretion. Our elected judges are highly qualified individuals who can act as a last line of defense for our communities in determining the level of danger an individual would pose to the outside world. Opponents of this discretion claim it creates unequal outcomes for different socio-economic statuses. I respond that this is not about how much money is in your bank account, no matter if you are rich or poor, this is about the level of threat you pose. We need to return to holding violent offenders on bail to prevent their future crimes, which have gone unpunished for too long now.

An often-overlooked part of the 2019 bail reform package is the newly-enacted discovery laws. The laws purposely created a clerical nightmare for prosecutors across our state as they must collect thousands of documents, many not even pertinent to a given case, within a short amount of time to even try a case. This has caused case dismissals to skyrocket and thousands of prosecutions to go untried. This is yet another example of why criminals in New York fear no recourse.

It is past time for the governor and legislative Majorities to back off from their political posturing and work with us to return public safety to our streets and communities. Cheap rhetoric will do nothing to bring back crime victims like John Lee, and a lack of action will only contribute to the continued senseless tragedies that none of us should become numb to.

As always, please feel free to reach out to my office at 315-493-3909 or email me at blankenbushk@nyassembly.gov.