Progressive leaders implemented criminal justice reforms with the stated goal of redressing the disparity in the arrests, convictions, and incarcerations of black Americans.
However, in actuality, analysts say these measures have backfired, increasing crime, along with the victimization and incarceration of black Americans.
Statistics and Evaluations
Hannah E. Meyers, head of the Manhattan Institute’s local policing and community security initiative, told Fox News all about this.
Reforms in Criminal Justice System to Bring "Racial Equity" Have Resulted in Criminal Empowerment
Soros-backed changes resulting in crime surge in all big Dem run citieshttps://t.co/1Vs65354hC
— DeMario (@DJDeMario1) February 22, 2022
“A lot of these initiatives were designed purely around the concept that blacks are inordinately represented in arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and incarceration.”
“There is also the view that criminal justice policy should be designed to back-engineer that amount to be more in line with the racial makeup of the rest of society,” she said. “This aggravated the issue.”
Meyers and Jim Quinn, an erstwhile executive district attorney in the Queens district attorney’s branch, recently published an article in the New York Times.
The article is contending that by focusing exclusively on dissuading and responding to crime, lawmakers appear to have overlooked the basic fundamental purpose of law and order.
“By aiming for racial ‘equity’ in criminal justice,” lawmakers “seem to have neglected the foundational purpose of law and order,” write Jim Quinn, a former district attorney in Queens, and Hannah E. Meyers, a program director at the Manhattan Institute. https://t.co/hRIXGpSTT9
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) February 16, 2022
According to the report’s authors, it resulted in a dramatic increase in crime victims, who remain disproportionately black, and a minor increase in the number of black Rikers Island inmates.
The city of New York is battling an epidemic of crime. From 2019 to 2021, murders increased by 52%, gunshots increased by 104%, and car thefts increased by 91%.
According to the writers of the NYT editorial, in 2020, black New Yorkers would account for 65% of homicides and 74% of shootings.
In New York, enforcement and incarceration laws have been a point of contention. Such measures were implemented when Black Lives Matter rallies and the ‘defund the cops’ movement reached a fever pitch in 2020.
Policies and Repercussions
In 2017, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio approved the city’s “supervised release” program’s release of thousands of Rikers Island convicts.
New York lawmakers amended the state’s bail regulations in 2019, limiting the types of offenses for which courts can issue bonds.
Additionally, New York adopted discovery reform in 2019, requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence to the defense sooner in the course of a case’s procedures.
The reforms were implemented in response to de Blasio’s defunding of the police, which resulted in the elimination of the NYPD’s plainclothes section and the reassignment of personnel.
Meyers and Quinn asserted such policies are “affecting black New Yorkers,” citing rising crime rates in predominantly black neighborhoods throughout the city.
Evidently, there are topics worth discussing, such as why there is so much more crime in minority areas, but “you have to go upstream.”
“They cannot be resolved only by altering who is arrested or imprisoned. That is a system devoid of color perception.” According to Meyers, that is not the appropriate location for the do-gooder fix.
