NYPD Data Could Push Albany to Address Recidivism Crisis

Mayor Adams and the new police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, addressed reporters this week to highlight a crime reduction in 2024 compared to 2023.

While this is positive news, the true nature of crime in New York City extends far beyond just year-over-year statistics.

If you relocated to NYC in 2023, a 3% decrease in major crime may bring some relief.

However, for those who have been here since 2019, the reality is a staggering 30.5% increase in major crimes.

Since 2019, murder has risen nearly 20%, robbery has increased by 25%, felony assault has surged by 43%, and burglary by 22%. Auto theft has skyrocketed by an astonishing 163% since that pre-pandemic year.

In total, there were nearly 29,000 more crime victims in 2024 than there were in 2019.

The bail reform laws led to the release of over 2,000 repeat offenders from city jails within just a few months—from October 2019 to January 2020—marking the start of NYC’s crime surge after nearly 27 years of continuous decline.

Now, the heightened crime levels from bail reform have become our “new norm,” serving as the standard against which we measure change.

Imagine if you had a 102-degree fever, and your doctor celebrated lowering it to 101. Our 2024 crime rate—again, 30.5% higher than in 2019—has become a new baseline of 98.6 degrees.

Both Adams and Tisch seem to understand this. The mayor has voiced concerns over bail reform before, and the commissioner penned a column in The Post this week to urge Albany for a change in the laws that have contributed to rising crime.

Recidivism is escalating because the 2019 bail reform laws do not permit judges to remand dangerous offenders— and even when they are able to set bail, judges appointed during Bill de Blasio’s tenure often choose not to do so.

The commissioner should continue to shed light on the damage these laws have inflicted upon our city—and she has the means to do so.

The NYPD’s weekly CompStat reports should compare current crime statistics with the same timeframe in 2019, prior to the bail reforms, allowing the public, the press, and the governor to recognize crime escalation since these laws were enacted.

The NYPD is aware of who they arrest, the Department of Correction knows who is incarcerated, and the court system is cognizant of the release conditions for each arrestee. Would it not be revealing to understand how many repeat offenders are released on their own recognizance every week—and what their prior convictions entail?

Additionally, the city could release statistics detailing the criminal backgrounds of those currently held on Rikers Island, so that the public can gauge the potential dangers posed when 2,500 of them are released due to its planned closure.

The mayor possesses this data; the information is devastating to proponents of reform, and the public deserves to be informed.

Our state representatives have yet to be held accountable for the harm they have wrought upon this city.

Their earnest calls to end “mass incarceration” and combat alleged racism within the criminal justice system have led to death and injury among the very communities they claim to assist.

Victims of violent crime in NYC are predominantly black or Hispanic. Making up roughly 50% of the city’s population, they account for 88.4% of murder victims, 94.7% of shooting victims, 78.2% of felony assault victims, 75.1% of rape victims, and 70% of robbery victims, according to NYPD statistics.

For the progressive political elite, these victims appear to be an acceptable sacrifice in the pursuit of their ideological goal to reduce the jail population.

While they may lack the courage to admit this publicly, they do so in private—hence their need to assert, implausibly, that liberating thousands of repeat offenders onto the streets has no relation to the rise in crime, often referring to dubious, biased, ideological “studies” to support their claims.

Adams and Tisch possess the necessary information to pressure these politicians into taking required actions to diminish crime, or else face the backlash from their constituents. They must act on it.

Distinguished economist Thomas Sowell once said, “It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”

We must persist in our efforts, but Sowell certainly had a point.

Jim Quinn served as executive district attorney in the Queens District Attorney’s Office for 42 years.