Blaz: Change the laws in wake of hate crimes

A series of anti-Semitic crimes in the city led Mayor de Blasio on Thursday to call for changes to a new state law that limits judges’ ability to impose bail on criminal defendants.

“Where I think there is real agreement is that the bail reform law needs to be amended. I believe this strongly,” de Blasio said Thursday.

“I know [Police Commissioner Dermot] Shea and [NYPD Chief of Department Terence] Monahan believe it,” the mayor told reporters after a meeting with Jewish leaders in Borough Park, the site of several recent alleged anti-Semitic assaults.

State law effective Jan. 1 prevents judges from setting bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. Its aim is to prevent poor people and minorities from being locked up just because they lack funds.

Some politicians are already calling for the law to be amended to allow bail in more cases. Their arguments have been boosted by a spate of antiSemitic attacks reported in the city, along with a slashing rampage at a Saturday Chanukah celebration in the Rockland County community of Monsey.

“There is a chance now for the Legislature to get it right,” de Blasio said. “They did some very good reforms, but there’s also things that need to be done, particularly empowering judges to determine if someone poses a threat to the surrounding community and giving judges the power to act on that and hold someone in.”

Supporters of the law are wary of changes that would let judges set bail on the basis of their evaluation of the danger suspects pose.

“Mayor de Blasio’s kneejerk policy suggestion is shortsighted and contrary to what New Yorkers need or want,” said Marie Ndiaye, a lawyer at the Legal Aid Society.

Such a change “would not accomplish anything to improve safety or combat hate in our society,” said Lisa Schreibersdorf, executive director of Brooklyn Defender Services, which represent lowincome criminal suspects.

A Brooklyn assemblyman said hate crimes should be restored as offenses that qualify for bail.

“I fear that the trend of criminals who commit heinous, violent crimes being released onto the streets without bail could become the new normal in New York unless we rectify the law to consider perpetrators of hate crimes in a separate category, to be arraigned under the previous system of pretrial monetary bail or pending a judge’s discretion,” Democratic Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein said in a statement.