Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly blasted state bail reform Sunday, saying the legislature “shoved” the reform law “down the public’s throat.”
“The passage of this bail reform act really was the height of arrogance on the part of the New York State Legislature,” Kelly told host John Catsimatidis on AM 970’s The Cats Roundtable.
“They had no public discussions when the legislation was being put together. They had no consultations with district attorneys, with police executives, with judges. They just did it because they could. Now we are seeing the ramifications of it,” Kelly said, referring to the recent increase in reported crimes.
The ex-commissioner admitted that bail reform was working in some parts of the country, citing New Jersey specifically, but noted that “they have a component that the New York state legislation does not have, and that is judicial discretion.
“That means judges can look at a person and determine where he or she is going to present danger to the public and keep that person in jail,” he said.
“We are dealing with a recidivist population,” Kelly said, adding that studies show criminals don’t commit one crime, they commit multiple crimes and are only arrested for a few of them.
“It’s only logical, what happened, crime went up because people had the opportunity, criminals have the opportunity to commit more crime,” he said.
A total 16,343 major crimes were reported in the first two months of 2020 — up 2,965 from the same period in 2019. But only 299 of those major crimes — 10 percent — were committed by bail-reform beneficiaries, NYPD statistics show.