Solving our crime problem requires real communication, not rhetoric

Hyperpoliticized rhetoric over public safety is masking the reality of the issue, and blocking substantive discussion of how to address it.

Politicians desperate for wins and advocates locked into absolute views on the criminal justice system are distorting issues that are serious and more complicated than their portrayals suggest.

The tenor of the dispute is preying on our collective peace of mind. An Emerson College poll released Friday revealed that while 60% of New York City and Long Island residents believe bail reform has increased crime, only 13% named it their top voting issue.

Yes, a conversation about controlling crime and ensuring public safety is needed. This cacophony of fury and excuses is not that conversation.

Any serious discussion of crime starts with facts. Changes to the penal code that ended cash bail for all but the most serious offenses began in January 2020. That, along with “Raise the Age” rules adopted in 2017 that stopped charging 16- and 17-year-old suspects as adults, started the concerns that crime would skyrocket.

STATS TELL THE STORY

In New York City, serious crimes in 2021 were up about 10% over 2019, the last year before the changes to bail and pretrial laws, though still down 5% from 2012. And they might be rising further in 2022. Homelessness and COVID-19-related psychosis have increased and the atmosphere feels, and in many instances is, less safe.

But outside New York City, crime was down statewide 6% in 2021 compared with 2019, and down 40% from 2012. On Long Island, serious crimes were down 5% in that same period, and down 40% since 2012.

The most worrying crime trend statewide is spiking murders, up about 60% in 2021 compared with 2019, although Long Island has generally been spared this climb.

Yet it’s clear Long Islanders feel less safe, particularly on public transportation, and that residents don’t need to be crime victims to feel unsafe. And as cops and civilians come to believe there are fewer repercussions for criminals, victims may be less likely to report crimes, and officers less inclined to apprehend and charge some suspects.

What crime statistics cannot convey are the fears of people beset by aggressive panhandlers, or menaced by a mentally ill person’s bellows, threats or physical attacks. The despair of running a gauntlet of encamped homeless people in a train station or park, or seeing video of sickening crime on televisions and phones, is real. So is the sense of violation when a catalytic converter is stolen from your car, or the fear when it happens to a neighbor.

PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME DIFFER

NextLI, a Newsday Opinion and Hofstra University initiative to stimulate Islandwide discussions on public policy, conducted a poll this summer asking 2,700 Long Islanders how safe they felt in various scenarios. The results showed residents wrestling with concerns over crime, and fears that it's worsening.

Asked whether they feel more or less safe than a year ago, 52% of Republicans said they felt less safe, compared with 26% of Democrats and 39% of independents, while 16% of Democrats said they felt safer, double the number of Republicans and independents who did.

Asked whether they felt safe on public transportation, 45% of Republicans and 41% of independents said they did not, compared with 25% of Democrats.

But in other areas, politics did not affect responses much. About 92% of respondents feel safe from crime at home at night, but only 76% do when walking in their neighborhood after dark. About 86% felt their family was safe at school.

The question of whether Long Islanders can feel safe on public transportation is a prime example of facts open to interpretation. There was a 73% increase in reported felonies on the Long Island Rail Road through August, compared with 2021. But that includes only 78 total felonies through August, on thousands of trains carrying tens of millions of riders; 38 of the 78 incidents were grand larcenies that mostly happened when items left behind were taken or riders fell asleep and had belongings stolen.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin is running on the assertion that crime is terrifyingly out of control thanks to Democratic policies, and promises on his first day as governor to use emergency powers to suspend cashless bail and policies that make sentences less severe, and again charge 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. Gov. Kathy Hochul promises to boost policing on and around public transportation, provide more beds for those who are mentally ill, and speed up court proceedings. She's also fighting to stop the flow of illegal guns.

But people see a society overwhelmed by the entangled ills of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction. Many people we instinctively feel “should not be on the streets” also should not be jailed, but in recent decades incarceration became our fallback solution to homelessness, mental illness, and addiction.

Cashless bail exposed that, which brings us to the real conversation. 

Criminals must be arrested and prosecuted, but we can’t jail people for being unsettling, disorderly, or a nuisance. Neither, though, can we tolerate lawless, terrifying public spaces, runaway shoplifting, vandalism, or intimidation.

We've been through this before. We know what works. 

Shelter homeless people. Treat the mentally ill and addicts. Arrest and punish criminals, with pretrial arrangements and post-conviction sentences fitting the crimes.

And end the cynical politics of pretending public safety has not become a problem, or that it has become a far larger problem than it is.