A not-so-secret scourge

At a time when a safe New York City is getting still safer, domestic violence remains a scourge. Police field roughly 600 such calls a day. We just suffered three husband-on-wife murder-suicides, in three different boroughs, over a five-day stretch. One out of five murders and two of every five felony assaults are now domestic violence-related.

Salt in the wounds: Infamous domestic abuser Hiram Monserrate is toying with running again for public office.

Though policing strategies can surely improve, a problem this big, where victims often refrain to report attacks and most crimes take place behind closed doors, is hard for cops to interrupt in real-time. It proliferates for personal and cultural reasons that society must tackle in other ways, including through robust public education.

But there’s at least one criminal justice reform coming down the pike that may make the major problem worse.

Under the bail law set to go into effect in the new year, judges may require defendants accused of a few misdemeanors linked to domestic violence, like violating an order of protection, to post bonds. But people arrested on other domestic violence-linked crimes, like misdemeanor assault, menacing, stalking, strangulation and criminal mischief, will be released pretrial. Always.

And while the law allows judges to require some defendants to wear electronic monitors, those may well prove to be insufficient protection for would-be victims.

In Manhattan, prosecutors say a third of people arrested on domestic-violence charges released pretrial between 2014 and 2018 went on to commit a new domestic violence offense while their cases were pending.

Something very bad could happen.