“If Bragg doesn’t buckle, and if the current surge in street crime recedes, New York could move closer to the holy grail of becoming safer and more fair at the same time.” errollouis
Photo: Craig Ruttle/AP/Shutterstock Alvin Bragg, the newly elected Manhattan district attorney, is being attacked on an almost daily basis for doing exactly what he promised voters: moving away from using arrest, prosecution, and jail as the primary, default strategy for dealing with low-level crimes and disorder.
The general idea, championed by Bragg and a number of so-called “progressive prosecutors” around the country, is to clear the docket of court-clogging lower-level offenses, thereby freeing up police and prosecutors to focus on serious problems like gang activity, gun trafficking, and domestic violence.
Bragg’s arguments and his calm, earnest demeanor — along with the solid turnout of voters in his native Harlem — carried him to victory in the primary and general elections. And shortly after being sworn in, he issued the promised memo.The New York Post dedicated no fewer than five cover stories to screaming headlines and scathing editorials. “You’ve ordered your prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for nearly all crimes, and to charge many felonies as mere misdemeanors.
“Mr. Bragg’s philosophy on letting these things go unprosecuted is not going to work in my opinion, and I think that we’re putting the public in harm’s way,” said Paul DiGiacomo, president of the detectives union. “I understand the concept — no one wants to see a young man or a young child in jail for a crime that doesn’t warrant it,” he told me.
Bragg, like other candidates, vowed to continue a process started by longtime DA Cy Vance to dramatically dial down the number of prosecutions, especially when it came to lesser offenses. Overall, the number of cases brought by the office fell by 60 percent under Vance, according to the office’s data dashboard — and during all but the last two of those years, crime also fell precipitously to the lowest levels in decades.