Negotiations regarding the New York State budget have just concluded a few days ago and a budget has passed after more than two weeks of delays. But while Gov. Kathy Hochul has proclaimed this year’s ‘bold agenda’ aims to make New York ‘safer,’ there hasn’t been so much as a whisper about the safety issue New Yorkers actually care about – New York States’s dangerous bail reform laws and the State’s absence of a ‘dangerousness standard,’ which would allow judges to detain without bail those defendants that pose a present a clear and present danger to our communities. (The 49 other states and the federal government have a dangerousness standard. NY State is the only state that lacks this essential protection from the State’s most dangerous offenders.)
Time and time again, the Governor and the State Senate Majority Leader and the Assembly Speaker are failing to address the most glaring deficiencies in the State’s criminal justice system, ignoring the pleas of New Yorkers and every police organization across the state. And honest, law-abiding New Yorkers are paying the price.
