Former Los Angeles Police Chief and former NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said this past Sunday that the Big Apple wasn’t just battling the coronavirus, but also was battling misguided criminal justice reforms.
From the New York Post:
“’New Yorkers are now suffering from two viruses,’ the Big Apple’s former top cop said on AM 970’s“The Cats Roundtable’ radio show Sunday. “One that’s taking hundreds and thousands of lives. The other that’s putting hundreds of thousands of lives in absolute fear of people breaking into their apartments.’
“’On the one hand, we’re trying to protect [people] from the coronavirus,’ Bratton told host John Catsimatidis. ‘And on the other hand, we’re creating a criminal virus threat. Cuckoo-land.’
“The controversial state measure barred judges from setting bail on most misdemeanors and many nonviolent felonies, allowing thousands of inmates to dodge jail and return to the streets while awaiting trial — and in some cases getting arrested again for new crimes.”
California’s residents are fighting the same bail reform battle as New Yorkers. So-called bail reform passed in California and was signed into law in August 2018. But one reform is never enough. This past month, under the guise of protecting inmates from the coronavirus, Governor Gavin Newsom released 3,500 inmates and the California Judicial Council decided on “zero bail” offenses. Worse, we learn that county court commissioners are allowing the release of dangerous criminals—most notably the release of seven “high risk” sex offenders in Orange County.
Obviously, reform measures are as contagious as coronavirus.
Commissioner Bratton classified what happened in New York as “cuckoo-land,” but the same can be said of California.
Read the entire New York Post article here:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/bill-bratton-slams-criminal-justice-reform-virus-plaguing-nyc/