Filter Magazine: NY Gov. Cuomo Signs Away Bail Reforms Despite COVID-19 Decarceration Calls

“After the reforms took effect, criminal justice experts found they were working well in keeping people out of jail.

“People were going home to their families and their jobs and their kids, not spending time in a jail cell,” Scott Levy of the Bronx Defenders told Filter. “The sky was not falling. There was a ton of fear-mongering and sensational journalism against it, but the data we were seeing was conclusive that the reforms were working.”

Levy described a months-long, politically motivated backlash against the bail reforms from the beginning. Opponents targeted vulnerable Democratic State Senate seats in the Long Island and Hudson Valley regions, urging a rollback of the reforms in the interests of “public safety.”

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