On April 24, 2009, the smiling faces of then-Gov. David Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and then-state Sen. Eric Schneiderman headed a press conference on the signing of a “reform” of New York’s supposedly draconian drug laws. Behind them stood a gaggle of progressive legislators and community activists.
The law, under the guise of diverting drug felons into drug-treatment programs, eliminated mandatory imprisonment and significantly shortened sentences for sellers of hard drugs and other “nonviolent” felons, even for those with prior felony convictions.
Conspicuously absent from the photo-op were prominent law-enforcement officials — who knew that these “reforms” would mean a rise in crime.
And it has.
Over the past year, from Montauk to Buffalo and just about every place in between, crime, including violent crime, has risen dramatically, reversing a two-decade downward trend.
Crime and violent crime rose 12 percent in 16 of 17 “impact” jurisdictions — high-crime and drug-prone communities outside New York City, led by staggering jumps in violent crime of 40 percent in Newburgh and 30 percent in Yonkers. Buffalo and Rochester saw a near-doubling in the number of shooting victims.
Even New York City has seen a 4 percent rise in crime, with a 20 percent spike in subway crime.
Soaring crime became inevitable once elected officials embarked on a policy of emptying prisons of “nonviolent” felons, especially drug dealers. There are now some 15,000 fewer felons in prison than in 2000, and more than 4,000 fewer than in 2009.
Unsurprisingly, many drug felons have opted not to enter treatment programs, instead taking advantage of shorter sentences to return to the street sooner and continue committing crimes.
It was absurd to believe that keeping thousands of convicted felons on the street rather than in prison would cause a decrease in crime — but that was the bill of goods sold to the public.
The propaganda campaign behind the evisceration of New York’s drug laws was funded and promoted by a cast of progressive luminaries — among them leftist billionaire George Soros, hip-hop moguls Russell Simmons and Jay-Z and the radical group ACORN — with no expertise in policing.
The law hinged on a series of disingenuous talking points. Promoters perpetuated the myth that drug dealing and trafficking are “nonviolent” crimes, ignoring the fact that every level of the drug trade is geared toward violence; the penetration of narcotics into every sector of American society in the 1960s fueled the violent crime wave that lasted three decades.
They also denied the obvious: that tough law enforcement and increased incarceration played a critical role in New York’s historic crime reduction.
Drug-related violence takes many forms: gun battles for turf between rival gangs; addicts committing robberies and burglaries to fund their habit; assaults and murders by those whose lives and minds have been warped by substance abuse. And the sale and possession of illegal firearms goes hand-in-hand with the drug trade.
Still, reformers convinced legislators that drug sellers are victims rather than the victimizers they truly are.
Ultimately, the people who will suffer most from these misguided reforms are those that live in our state’s poorest communities — which lack New York City’s resources to redeploy police officers or expand anticrime programs.
While drug treatment plays an important role in protecting the community, inappropriately extending treatment and shorter sentences to undeserving habitual criminals and drug traffickers does not serve that purpose.
Paterson, Silver and Schneiderman owe thousands of additional crime victims an apology.
Michael E. Bongiorno was Rockland County district attorney from 1995 to 2007.