WE MUST FOLLOW FACTS, NOT FEAR
Bail reform not the reason for rise in some crimes in NYC
It is impossible to open a New York newspaper today and avoid headlines about crime and violence. For most, it doesn’t matter that what is amplified in the news are extreme, outlier cases. New Yorkers are understandably scared because it feels like crime and violence is widespread. They are looking for solutions to make them feel safe again in their city. And when their mayor, former police officer Eric Adams, tells them that bail reform is one cause of crime and violence, that fear then morphs into anger and a now-growing call to change the two-year-old New York bail law, which made some lower-level offenses ineligible for bail.
I do not want to downplay the tragedies that are these recent incidents of violence, such as the recent stabbing in Chinatown or feces-smearing subway incident. Nor do I want to dispute that, in large part because of the media’s fixation on the sensational, this moment in New York City may feel different — and scarier — for residents than others in recent memory. But I do want to make clear that bail reform is unequivocally not to blame. Attacking this modest, and so-far successful, policy is not only a distraction, but does a disservice to our commitment to true public safety.
Here is the reality: Because of bail reform, nearly 200,000 more innocent-until-proven-guilty people have been free to be with their families, jobs, housing, education and communities without the threat of being detained on Rikers Island and other violent jails across the state. This hasn’t just saved lives, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, it has saved taxpayers $638 million annually. And just as before bail reform, of those who are released pretrial — including people charged with violent felonies, who judges still have power to detain under the law — nearly 95% have not been rearrested for anything, and 99% have not been rearrested for violent felonies.
Given the power of fear and anger, I realize that the human and fiscal cost of pretrial incarceration — or even the close to 200,000 bail reform success stories — might not feel sufficiently compelling. I also realize that the simple fact that short-run increases in crime are consistent across the United States has not seemed to convince New Yorkers that pointing fingers at bail reform is misguided. So I thought it was important to provide New Yorkers who understandably feel scared with some long-term, New York perspective.
I turned to the New York Police Department’s own crime statistics — all of which are available on their public site — to see what I could learn about the impact of reform, and corresponding decarceration, on crime.
I looked up historical arrest data in New York City each year since 2000 on what the NYPD considers the seven most serious, major felonies: murder, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, grand larceny and car theft. I cross-referenced this annual crime data with annual numbers of people detained pretrial in New York City jails. Even though the NYPD’s arrest charges are often more serious than actual charges brought by prosecutors, my findings were still conclusive that decreases in jail populations not only do not lead to increases in crime, but parallel significant decreases in crime. Let’s go through the numbers. Historic decarceration paralleled historic drops in crime. In every year between 20002011, NYC jails averaged around 14,000 people detained, predominantly Black and Brown New Yorkers, and the vast majority there pretrial, presumed innocent on unaffordable bail. Then, in 2013, the Rikers population began to decline. For the six years leading up to bail reform in 2020, the city’s jail population plummeted from an average of around 14,000 per year to under 6,000. Over that time period, all major crimes also plummeted. By 2020 and 2021, the years after bail reform was implemented, 57% fewer people were jailed — and yet there were substantially fewer serious felony arrests across the board.
Bail reform was accompanied by a decrease in major felonies. The total number of major felonies in 2020 — 95,593 — the year after bail reform took effect, was fewer than every year between 2000-2019, before bail reform. In 2021, the total number of major felonies — 102,741 — was less than every year between 2000-2015. By way of comparison, the year 2000 had 184,652 major felonies at a time when the NYC jail population was highest.
The increase in homicides is not tied to bail reform. The average number of homicides in New York City per year between 2000-2011, when our jails held steady at around 14,000 people detained, was 562. Then jail numbers started falling. What happened in the last two years, with nearly 60% fewer people jailed? 2020 homicide numbers were 16% lower and 2021 homicides 13% lower than the average number of homicides between 2000-2011.
Still, yes: Homicide numbers were higher in 2020 and 2021 than in more recent previous years — consistent with trends across the country. There were around 150 more homicides in each of 2020 and 2021 than in 2019. Opponents of bail reform have seized on the striking percentage increase to argue bail reform is to blame. Every single person killed is one too many, which is why we need to follow facts.
Perspective is imperative. As New York
City jail numbers started declining even more sharply after 2011, homicide rates dropped to remarkable, historic lows. The years 2013-2019 averaged just 323 homicides per year. And from 2017-2019, as the jail population dropped below 10,000 for the first time and then declined even more toward 6,000 people incarcerated, the city recorded its lowest numbers of average homicides in its modern history: just 302.
New York City was as homicide-free as it had ever been, which also meant that any increase at all — even to the already historically low average annual homicides of 323 from 2013-2019 — would be a 6% increase that police, prosecutors and leaders like Adams could then seize on to suit their purposes. Then, a pandemic happened and homicide numbers increased around the country — in cities that implemented reforms and conservative cities that did not.
Though NYPD officials have tried to blame bail reform for the rise in murders — suggesting that these shootings are being committed by people released pretrial who would not have been before the reforms — their own numbers once again debunk this claim. A mid-2020 analysis of NYPD data by the notoriously pro-police New York Post found that “most people released under the criminal justice reforms or amid the pandemic had no known ties to the bloodshed.” And when confronted under oath by Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, former NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea was forced to admit he had been lying for years about the connection between bail reform and gun violence, acknowledging his own data showed that people released under bail reform are exceptionally rarely rearrested for gun offenses.
Rapes decreased after bail reform. From 2019 to 2020, when bail reform was implemented, there was an 18% decrease in rapes. From 2019 to 2021, there was a 15% decrease.
Grand larcenies decreased after bail reform. There were 7,745 fewer grand larcenies in 2020 than 2019, the year before bail reform — an 18% decrease — and 2,380 fewer in 2021 than in 2019 — a 5% decrease.
Burglaries were overall consistent after bail reform. The numbers in 2020 and 2021, while higher than the year before bail reform, were relatively consistent with the years 2015-2017. These are normal fluctuations.
Robberies decreased after bail reform. There were 265 fewer robberies in 2020 than in 2019, the year before bail reform — a 2% decrease.
If we blame bail reform for increases in murders after its implementation, it would only be consistent to credit bail reform with the corresponding decreases in these other major categories of crime. But that, too, would be misguided, as we cannot determine causation based on short-run statistics.
It is tempting to say the rise in shootings and homicides is due to bail reform. The truth, however, is that data does not point to changes in bail law as the cause of crime in New York City, and undoing the reform would have significant consequences for countless New Yorkers. I know that numbers can be cold comfort for an anxious population, but it would be irresponsible to ignore hard data at a time when solutions for public safety are so desperately needed.
If we want to make our city safer, we must follow the facts. Recent history should be our guide, not cynical fear and weaponization of tragedies. We can have more freedom, more fairness, and more health and safety all at once.