The mayor of New York City has joined the conservative chorus rebuking Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies, calling his own city’s justice system “a laughingstock of our entire country.”
Mayor Eric Adams’ criticism was aimed at prosecutors and judges for releasing criminals onto the city streets under Democrats’ bail reform, saying “bad guys no longer take them seriously,” the New York Post reported Monday.
Adams, who serve 22 years with the New York Police Department and a former NYPD captain, praised police for being “laser-focused on the shooters” in making arrests but “the other team must do their part.”
“The courts have to prosecute,” Adams said at a news conference with NYPD officials in Brooklyn. “Judges have to make sure they stay in. Everyone has to do their part. If not, they go out and come back.
“And you know what’s interesting? You do a profile, the picture that’s emerging after the shooting, after the arrest, after being let go — You know what they do? They go do another shooting.”
The remarks strike the same chord conservatives have made on Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies for years, including bail reform.
“People no longer believe that you can’t do a shooting in the city,” Adams continued, the Post reported. “No one takes criminal justice seriously anymore. These bad guys no longer take them seriously.
“They believe our criminal justice system is a laughingstock of our entire country.
“We have to get serious about this ’cause innocent people are dying.”
Adams, a Democrat, blamed his own party control in Albany for failing to fix the state’s bail reform and put a “dangerousness” standard pre-trial on arrested suspected criminals, particularly if they have a history of serious or violent crimes.
“We made some victories in Albany around public safety,” Adams said, according to the Post. “We would have liked to receive more, like the dangerousness standard that’s so important.
“I’m hoping that they can examine that in the next legislative cycle because we have to close some of those loopholes that are dealing with public safety.”
Democrats’ ideology on criminal justice does not comport with reality, Adams lamented.
“Sometimes I just feel with some lawmakers that they’re just not dealing in the reality; idealism can’t displace realism,” Adams said.
“I’ve had lawmakers say to me that young people are carrying guns because they feel unsafe and so, it should be understandable that they’re carrying guns. No! No! It’s not understandable. And so, if that’s the philosophy up there, I heard a lawmaker say that ‘if you, if you want to deal with the Rikers issue, just let anybody out.’ I mean, what is the reality here? That is not what New Yorkers want.
“And so, we’re hoping that they listen to what we have been saying to make our city the safe city that we deserve.”
Via Newsmax