Democrats are trying to rush bail reform rollbacks into the budget in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.

NY Senate Democrats have decided to rush ahead to pass the state budget in an "accelerated process." And if they tack on rollbacks to bail reform, the state will drastically increase the number of people held in jails before trial. Jails are uniquely poor sites for stopping or containing viral outbreaks. Social distancing is virtually impossible in the close quarters of New York’s jails. Hand sanitizer is deemed contraband and access to soap, toilet paper, and handwashing facilities are highly limited.

Any rollbacks to bail reform would exacerbate this public health crisis.

COVID-19 is already starting to sweep through NY jails, with confirmed cases in corrections officers and those incarcerated, leaving staffers at the prison facility scrambling to find all those who might've come in contact with the virus. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. We must put a stop to the effort from NY lawmakers to hastily pass the new budget amidst this public health crisis, too many lives are at risk. 

During this pandemic, New Yorkers need healthcare, safe housing, and other community investments

Increasing investment in what communities need to thrive works to keep communities safe. Jails don't. Especially during the outbreak of infectious disease, the churn of people in and out of jails is dangerous. Any effort to prevent the spread of the disease must include putting a stop to that cycle. 

Bail reform is working.

Each day in February 2020, there were 6,800 fewer people incarcerated pretrial in New York’s jails than in February 2019. This is 6,800 people who are not exposed to a heightened risk of contracting COVID-19, people who are not subject to the trauma of pretrial jailing or the violation of their constitutional rights. We can't endanger the lives of our communities by turning back the clock on that success. 

NEW YORK BAIL REFORM IS A CONTINUATION OF A MEASURED, STEADY DECLINE IN INCARCERATION AND CRIME

In NYC, jail rates have decreased by 74% over the last 3 decades (from 21,674 in 1991 to 5,674 in 2020) as major felony crimes have simultaneously dropped by nearly 82%. In Brooklyn, most people charged w/ misdemeanors & non-violent felonies have been released for years violent crime rate has plummeted to historic lows in the same period. Within the first week of reform, there have also been major drops in the number of people in jail in counties like Herkimer and Onondaga, with no upticks in crime.

Vera Institute of Justice on Danger of Selective Use of Short-Term Crime Statistics

New York tried giving judges discretion for decades. It didn't work.

The new bail law only takes away judicial discretion to set bail in misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. Judges still retain discretion and set bail when allegations involve violent felonies. Despite New York having the most progressive bail law in the country for decades--a strong presumption in favor of release, the rejection of the concept of labelling people as “dangerous” or expecting judges to predict the future, the availability of multiple forms of bail intended to ensure more people were released—judges routinely and purposefully set bail in amounts people could not afford. 

The problem was not the previous bail law we had. It was trusting that judges would follow its words and spirit. That said, the new bail law does create more tools for judges and law enforcement to monitor people being released pretrial. All people facing criminal allegations will now be subject to a wide range of supervision options, and all are at the discretion of the judge.  

Judicial discretion under bail law

New York has never allowed judges to do so. Albany explicitly rejected it.

Allowing Judges to try to predict "dangerousness" is dangerous. Kalief Browder, the national symbol of the need for bail reform, would have been deemed dangerous, detained on Rikers, and still traumatized to death. A so-called "dangerousness" standard allows a judge to deem someone a threat to the public safety based on nothing more than a suspicion. The judge would be able to strip away a person’s liberty for months, if not years, based on a suspicion. A dangerousness standard would only increase the already egregious racial disparities and inequities in our criminal legal system. Ending cash bail does not require the creation of another mechanism to incarcerate people pretrial. Armed with even more power and discretion to do so, judges will do so. 

Bail Reform Only Benefits People charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies

The new bail laws, derived from years of advocacy and experience, are an incremental step of simply disallowing bail to be set on people charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, all while increasing the availability of pretrial services for individuals who need. In the end, lawmakers decided to continue to allow judges to retain the discretion to jail (or release) people, who are accused of a violent felony, if on the individual facts of the case and circumstances of the person before them, that makes sense. This is essentially the same policy that has always been in effect, but today, there are more options for services, including non-jail supervision and electronic monitoring that were not previously available.

List of Offenses Eligible for Bail

Bail reform took years of research, negotiation, and consideration from all sides

Bail reform didn’t just happen overnight. This was a process that took years of research, activism, negotiation and consideration. Everyone who needed to be a part of the process was. Stakeholders across the board were a part of negotiations, including prosecutors and police, despite their protestations that they were not, and the result is a bail law that decreases mass pretrial jailing, advances racial and socioeconomic justice, and makes our communities safer. Studies show that pretrial incarceration actually increases future crime.