Mayor's 'Dangerousness' Bail Standard Spurs Discrimination Fears

NEW YORK, NY — Mayor Eric Adams' push to add a "dangerousness" standard to the state's bail laws was met with resistance in its first public encounter with lawmakers, who warned the idea opens the door for the very racial bias bail reform sought to address.

"The reason you fought to change some of these laws is you recognize that laws are not colorblind," Bronx State Sen. Gustavo Rivera told the mayor, noting Adams' past support of bail reform.

"When you create a piece of legislation [with] language that seems colorblind, history has taught us that that is not the way it is utilized ... Please sir, be very cautious."

Adams, who had joined lawmakers Wednesday for a hearing on the state budget, has called the provision a "tweak" to the hotly debated 2019 bail reform, which restricts the use of cash bail and pretrial jailing.

The clause would have judge's assess a defendant's "dangerousness" when deciding whether to set bail. It is one of several criminal justice policy changes the mayor is calling for in his "Blueprint to End Gun Violence."

The mayor and proponents of the idea point out that New York is the only state in the country that does not give judges the authority to detain a defendant based on their potential threat to the community, which Adams says should be determined based on criminal history and the circumstances of their alleged crime.

Republican lawmakers, who have long sought to repeal bail reform, were among those who said they supported Adams' proposal Wednesday.

But many critics in Adams' own party agreed with advocates that judge's discretion will likely be "fraught with implicit and explicit biases" that could, like previous bail standards, disproportionately jail Black New Yorkers. Adams has said chief justices would monitor judge's decisions to look out for such discrimination.

"We are very cognizant of the Jim Crow remnants of criminal justice in our country," said Brooklyn Assembly Member Latrice Walker, one of the architects of bail reform. "Dangerousness is not a tweak — it is a whole sale change."

Walker, who had perhaps the most tense exchange with the mayor, was among those who contended Adams' claim the bail reform changes would prevent gun violence is not backed up by the data.

Supporters of bail reform have pointed the fact that only 2 percent of those released under the new bail laws were rearrested for violent crimes, though experts say it could be too early to draw definitive conclusions from the data, according to reports.

Walker pointed out that states with "dangerousness" provisions, like New Jersey, actually saw a larger percentage of defendants rearrested on felony charges than New York.

"It’s you who are making this a political issue," Walker told Adams, who suggested she take her debate to victims of gun violence, like the mother of an 11-month-old hit by a stray bullet.

"You don’t have to tell me to debate a person who lost an 11-month-old child, because I lost a brother at age of 19 years old to gun violence," she retorted. "I want to be safe."

The mayor promised Walker and others he would discuss the issue more in a visit to Albany next week.

"I’m not using rhetoric, sister, you know I don’t use rhetoric — you know my work," he said.
"[Let's] sit down and talk about this."