Tag: Statistics

Bail reform in New York in Creases Recidivism

  • Bail:
    • To protect the VICTIM and Society (Not considered in New York yet)
    • To make sure the offender appears in court
    • To make sure the offender does NOT re-offend

Recent Bail changes have hand cuffed police and judges from setting appropriate bail. Before the new bail changes Police were able to hold offenders (really for 1 or 2 days) until arraignment or post bail based upon the types of crimes the offender was arrested for. This was helpful especially when dealing with volatile situations (like neighbor disputes and domestic violence) where police could hold an offender overnight until arraignment by a judge. There are other situations when police arrest persons on warrant and that person used to be turned over to the municipality to answer the warrant and held to see a judge. This made the offender accountable to the criminal justice system. Now many more offenders are ignoring the fact that they have to attend court.

At arraignment “prior to the recent bail changes” a judge had the freedom to release the offender, hold the offender, or put bail on the offender. Now current legislation has curtailed the judges freedom to hold an offender or to set bail and it has become almost automatic for most crimes to release the offender. What has resulted is an augment that recidivism has increased as a result of the bail changes which has led to a decrease in public safety.

John Jay College has just released a report “Does New York’s Bail Reform Law Impact Recidivism?” that tends to disprove the premise that the NY bail reform changes have increased offender recidivism. However, if you’re on the ground in the criminal justice system there is an overwhelming sense that recidivism is one of a few significant outcomes that has resulted since the changes in bail reform. Another is increased disrespect by offenders to officers and probation.

The article “Straight Talk About Bail Reform” argues that bail reform has led to an increase in recidivism by offenders. The article has several links with data supporting it’s argument. One prominent link is to a New York Post article “Bail ‘Reform’ Increased Crime – and Misleading Studies Don’t Prove Otherwise” that makes an extensive analysis how New York’s bail reform increased recidivism and how the John Jay Report (listed above) erred with it’s analysis. The professors should look at the New York Post article and recalculate their finding and submit a correction

If you believe that the recent changes in bail reform are good please challenge these ideas to the “Straight Talk About Bail Reform” article and the New York Post article “Bail ‘Reform’ article. Another helpful article is “More Criminals, More Crime Measuring the Public Safety Impact of New York’s 2019 Bail Law”.

Also when considering Bail reform changes keep the following points in mind:

  • Resent changes were solely Offender based – None of the changes considered Victims
  • Offenders can miss court dates and warrants will NOT be issued for them, at least not until the court tries to call, text, and email the offender for several days
  • If a Victim or Witness misses a court date the case can be dismissed. REMEMBER who violated the law.
  • Under the old law when and offender was held by police the most the could be held would be 72 hrs (ex Friday to Monday) if there was no available judge on the weekend. The offender was usually arraigned the next morning.
  • Most station house bail was in the hundreds of dollars.
  • Holding an offender was a good decision for safety or they refuse to cooperate with their identity
  • Under the old law it was probably 30% Held/Bail and now less than 5% Held/Bail so it was always a small number of arrests held/bail

How does Arbitrarily Reducing Prison Sentences make Citizens Safer?

There is a recent article “The Public Safety Impact of Shortening Lengthy Prison Terms” (PDF here) in The Crime Report (paywall) that summarizes the study’s results for reducing lengthy prison sentences (10 year plus) by a few years. The Council on Criminal Justice released a report The Impact of Long Sentences on Public Safety: A Complex Relationship reporting the findings.

A 10 year sentence is for significant criminality. The problem is that the estimate of the impact from releasing the prisoners before the sentence end date is estimated too low. There are two studies “Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 34 States in 2012: A 5-Year Follow-Up Period (2012–2017)” and “Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 24 States in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008–2018)” estimate recidivism for arrest 3 years after release at 61.5% & 66.2 % respectively. Calculating 1127 prisoners released. Let’s use 60% recidivism there would be 676 post-released prisoners who would commit a new crime in 3 years since their release. The 676 prisoners are estimated to commit 162 violent crimes (including murder) & 224 non-violent crimes. With these different estimates is releasing prisoners early worth additional criminal costs. There are additional crimes for each subsequent year culminating in a 70.5% arrest recidivism (34 State Study) and a 81.9% arrest recidivism (24 State Study) following release. These percentages are significant.

Unfortunately prisoners released early from prison appears only to result in placing society at early risk of more crime.

Police Staffing Study – Canal Winchester, OH

The purpose of the staffing study for the City of Canal Winchester is to provide guidance to the Mayor and city legislative officials (city council) on matters concerning the desired staffing levels for law enforcement personnel assigned to patrol the city.

The study is designed to provide the City of Canal Winchester with information on the current levels of staffing (sworn personnel assigned by the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office) as well as future staffing recommendations based on population, police activity, and management philosophies.

www.canalwinchesterohio.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4617/Canal-Winchester-Ohio-Staffing-Study-Final-Report-2023

One in 20 US homicides are committed by police – and the numbers aren’t falling | US policing | The Guardian

It is VERY IMPORTANT to keep in mind that this article has a single premise – police are bad. There I save you a lot of reading.

Now if you have an open mind and look at the evidence keep the following in mind as you read the article.

  • Offenders are accountable for their behavior.
  • Police react to offender’s behavior.
  • Police make mistakes and police make bad decisions under life and death conditions.
  • Unarmed people can kill.
  • It is lawful for police to protect themselves and others.
  • Police do not have to be shot at before they can use deadly force.
  • Police have to use more force than the offender to overcome the offender’s force.
  • Police use of force many times is not easy or pretty.
  • Disproportionate by race to it’s population does not equal racism.
  • There are many factors that drive police-citizen contacts.

Police killings of any sort account for nearly 5% of all homicides, with at least 1,192 people killed by law enforcement in 2022
— Read on http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/15/us-homicides-committed-by-police-gun-violence

Driving While Black A Report on Racial Profiling Metro Nashville Police Department Traffic Stops

Our report shows that “driving while black” constitutes a unique series of risks, vulnerabilities, and dangers at the hands of the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) that white drivers do not experience in the same way.

Upon reviewing MNPD’s traffic stop database, our report finds that:

• Between 2011-2015, MNPD conducted 7.7 times more traffic stops annually than the U.S. national average

• Between 2011-2015, MNPD made more stops of black people than there were black people 16 years old and over living in Davidson County

• Between 2011-2015, MNPD consistently and unnecessarily stopped and searched black drivers in predominantly black, Hispanic, and low-income communities at rates substantially higher than they did white drivers in predominantly middle to upper income communities

• MNPD consent searches are invasive and fail to yield incriminating evidence 88.4% of the time.

• Evidence of unlawful activity is found during searches of white drivers more often than in searches of black and Hispanic drivers

• Nearly 80% of all MNPD traffic stops in 2015 result in a warning, and, in traffic stops including a search of the vehicle or driver, between one-third and half result in a warning, which means hundreds of thousands of drivers are being stopped and searched unnecessarily every year

• Since 2012, Operation Safer Streets (OSS) has resulted in more than 58,000 vehicle stops and 11,000 arrests, the vast majority of which were concentrated in communities of color. More than 90% of OSS arrests were for misdemeanors, often for possession of small amounts of marijuana or driving without a license, and more than 80% of stops yielded no evidence that warranted arrest.

See the report HERE:

drivingwhileblacknashville.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/driving-while-black-gideons-army.pdf