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Mayor Adams calling for change to bail laws to combat gun violence

Mayor Adams calling for change to bail laws to combat gun violence

Mayor Adams is calling for changes to the State’s bail reform laws to protect the streets of New York. It’s not a secret that hate crimes and gun violence are skyrocketing. 

New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky said that he supports Adam's recommendations to amend the state’s bail laws so that perpetrators can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. State legislative leaders on the other hand mentioned that they have no appetite to revisit bail reform this year although they said they will wait and see what the mayor proposes. 

“We must approach pretrial detention through the lens of public safety, something that is not done now,” Adams said in his briefing before outlining his ‘common sense’ set of reforms to strengthen New York’s bail laws. 

The first point Adams made was that judges should be allowed to take the defendant’s dangerousness into account. All 49 states besides New York allow judges to consider a defendant’s dangerousness. Judges must be able to evaluate a defendant’s criminal history and the conditions of their alleged crime to detain those individuals who carry a threat to the safety of the community, especially regarding gun violence.

The power to detain dangerous defendants is not unchecked, which leads us to the second point Adams put out in his briefing that there should be accountability and full transparency from our system. Judges’ decisions and the details of how they got there must be public.  

“These two common-sense, targeted measures would help deliver a pretrial system that is fairer, smarter, and more targeted towards those who would harm our communities and our city,” Adams finished.

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.


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