In a long-form report by The Daily Caller, New York’s bail reform has resulted in over 90 percent of criminals being allowed to walk free shortly after their arrests, including sex offenders, domestic abusers, and criminals previously arrested over 100 times.
At the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), the state of New York made significant changes to its bail system in April of 2019, which directed judges to not impose bail on anyone as long as they were arrested for a non-violent and non-felony crime.
As a result, criminals who have been allowed to leave jail almost immediately after being arrested include “child sex traffickers, terrorist sympathizers, robbery suspects, and domestic abusers.” One such case was a domestic abuser and sex offender who had been arrested 24 times in the last year alone. Another included the criminal who was seen punching a 92-year-old woman in the head and knocking her to the sidewalk, in a video that went viral; the man in the video, Rashid Brimmage, had previously been arrested 65 times.
Facing widespread backlash, Cuomo announced a sweeping set of changes earlier this year that would broaden the categories of crime for which criminals could be faced with bail, adding 15 additional types of crimes that would allow judges to keep such criminals in jail upon their arrest. However, these changes will not go into effect until July.
The bail reform scandal is the latest in a series of widespread and disastrous mishandlings of the criminal justice system on Cuomo’s watch, following his statewide push to release thousands of criminals from prison early due to the coronavirus outbreak.