We’ve been hearing a lot lately about getting tough with criminals. New York state recently enacted what’s described as “the toughest gun law in the country,” while the state’s chief jurist has proposed giving judges the power to refuse bail to felony defendants deemed likely to commit other crimes.
Based on long experience with the criminal-justice system, I’ll wait a bit before celebrating. Tough laws often don’t translate into effective law enforcement in the courts or on the streets.
In the 1970s, the prevailing practice in the courts was to let illegal gun carriers off with a wrist slap and just confiscate their guns. That is, get the gun off the street but not the gunman. In a city with an estimated million firearms floating around, a criminal could get a new weapon within an hour of leaving the courtroom.
In 1980, the Legislature passed a law requiring a mandatory minimum one-year jail sentence for gun carriers. But most judges didn’t enforce the statute. Instead, they invoked a loophole that let them award a lesser sentence “in the interest of justice” — a term that could mean anything.
This is still the case. In 2006, the Legislature raised the mandatory sentence for packing an unlicensed firearm to 3 1/2 years. Yet, five years after the law was passed, only about half of the illegal gun carriers arrested in New York City were imprisoned. The city’s criminal-justice coordinator observed that the “interest of justice” provision still affords a loophole “big enough to drive a Mack truck through.”
It’s the same all down the line. In 1981, the Legislature enacted a law requiring judges to deny bail to defendants who’d previously been charged with a serious crime while out on bail for another offense. Eight months after the law took effect, I conducted a survey of the city’s five counties — and found that the law had never once been invoked. Thirty years later, dangerous defendants are still being released on bail.
At the street level, where gun and other felony cases originate, police are urged to make arrests. But when they stop individuals who are acting suspiciously and subject them to a frisk, critics allege that the searches are “intrusive” and are often done without sufficient justification.
Searches are intrusive by nature — but sometimes they are necessary. Anyone who’s ever gone to hear a president speak has probably been subjected to a pretty good frisk. But what’s the alternative — letting someone into the auditorium who is carrying a gun?
The same applies to policing in a city with 1 million guns. Should the cops wait to take action until a shooting has already occurred or apprehend the shooter before he can strike?
Opponents of strong law enforcement are never satisfied. One proposal for cutting down the intrusiveness and possible subjectivity of police searches has been to use remote-sensing gun detectors to alert cops to a firearm being carried. Lo and behold, now that there’s talk of deploying the machines in New York City, objections have been raised against them, too.
If the courts are unwilling or the police not permitted to protect citizens, we’re left with a return to the Wild West. Already, some suggest that the best defense against a gunman is an armed citizen. I believe that a better answer is for politicians and the judiciary to keep us safe by seeing that laws are fully enforced.
Legislative action can help. First, put tight limits on judicial discretion in areas like sentencing and release on bail. The “interest of justice” provision should only be invokable in rare circumstances; accused felons whose history shows a propensity to commit crimes should not be turned loose.
And, above all else, lawmakers must ensure that the right and duty of police to prevent crimes before they happen is clearly recognized by the criminal-justice system.
Thomas A. Reppetto is the former president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City and the author of “American Police.”