DA Darcel Clark: The Underlying Factor Behind Crime in the Bronx

Hats off to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch for her forthrightness during her City Council hearing on Tuesday — and an everlasting mark of shame on Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark for perpetuating the same old myths that exacerbate our crime crisis.

Tisch firmly articulated her position against quality-of-life crimes, highlighting issues like aggressive panhandling, open drug use, and related offenses that, while seemingly minor, undermine people’s sense of security and can escalate to more serious crimes if left unchecked.

“Quality of life enforcement is grounded in community complaints. It’s about listening to the neighborhoods where residents call 311, pleading for assistance. In the last six years, those calls have nearly doubled,” she noted.

She is establishing a brand-new division focused exclusively on addressing these concerns.

Tisch’s remarks drew a clear line between her approach and broken-windows policing, the strategy that helped turn New York from a crime-ravaged city into a mostly safe one.

However you choose to frame it, this approach is essential.

After all, only someone living in an alternate reality (or perhaps a Gotham Democrat) could think that addressing both major and minor crimes, especially when citizens are pleading for it, is misguided.

Enter Darcel Clark.

In her statement, the Bronx DA regurgitated the same old rhetoric about tackling supposed “root causes” of crime, such as poverty (as if every economically disadvantaged person in New York is destined to become a violent criminal) alongside a generic denunciation of quality-of-life policing.

However, the data tell a different story.

Her borough is leading the city with a staggering 140% rise in 311 complaints since 2018; her office (according to Clark’s own reported figures) routinely dismisses nearly a third of prosecutions for all arrests and over one-fifth — a full fifth! — for violent felonies.

Moreover, crime rates have consistently increased year after year since 2019, based on NYPD statistics.

To put it plainly, it’s not poverty that’s fostering crime and societal decline in the Bronx.

It’s Clark.

And as long as pro-crime advocates like her hold any influence in New York City and state, our crime dilemma will persist.