Opinion

MIKE’S DANGEROUS CUTS

NEW York City faces tough budget choices, but I believe the mayor’s proposed 2009 Finan cial Plan seriously jeopardizes the public-safety gains of recent years. As bad as the budget is for the Police Department, it is far more ominous for the city’s district attorney offices.

While Mayor Bloomberg’s budget limits the number of new NYPD hires, it still grants the department a net increase in funding. That’s certainly appropriate. But the budget also slices DA offices – which have already been hit by years of trims – by 5 percent ($2.7 million for my office alone), with another 3 percent cut looming later in the year.

This reflects a grave misunderstanding of the relationships between these criminal-justice agencies. The Bronx saw nearly 100,000 arrests in 2007, up 14 percent from the year before and up 35 percent from 2001. (Arrests this year so far are at the 2007 level.) Indeed, Sunday’s Post noted the surge in misdemeanor arrests, which the NYPD credits with holding down violent crime rates.

It’s important to support the NYPD’s efforts to keep NYC the “safest big city in America” – but prosecutors are a vital part of that support. The story doesn’t end with an arrest; DAs must have adequate resources to evaluate, investigate and (where appropriate) prosecute each case.

By any meaningful measure of workload, we were losing ground thanks to record caseloads – even before you factor in the planned cuts. The mayor’s plan sets the stage for more arrests – and fewer resources to deal with defendants once they’ve been taken into custody.

Adding insult to injury, the financial plan does not cut defense services for indigent defendants. The New York Law Journal reports that the city plans to exempt the Legal Aid Society from both the 5 percent and the 3 percent cuts that DAs face. The paper reports that a mayoral aide justified this by noting that DA’s employees are covered by citywide health-care and pension plans. This makes no sense: Our staff will still be cut, while Legal Aid’s is left intact.

We understand the need for defendants to have capable counsel – but this disparate treatment may have serious consequences.

Indeed, even today, we are unable to meet our obligation to arraign cases within 24 hours, thanks (in part) to years of inadequate funding. The average time from arrest to arraignment in The Bronx in 2008 is more than 30 hours, and the problem is worsening.

Failure to meet the 24-hour requirement harms defendants and could cost the city financially. Some legislators have even suggested passing a law to let defendants sue for violations of their right to a timely arraignment.

Beyond an efficient criminal-justice process, Bronx residents have the right to expect an effective response to crimes involving domestic violence, child abuse, gang activities, fraud and economic exploitation, as well as quality-of-life crimes. Our response to all these threats to public safety is already handicapped by repeated budget cuts.

And this severe cut comes as a number of crime indicators have begun to spike upward. Compared with the same period in 2007, The Bronx so far this year has seen increases in robbery (18.2 percent) and grand larceny auto (6 percent). The borough also has witnessed the city’s largest rise in homicides, 30 as of March 23 compared to 21 for the same period in 2007.

These cuts don’t even make sense from a purely fiscal standpoint. As reductions make it impossible to adequately staff case-processing operations and other departments, delays will increase – and costs, such as overtime, will undoubtedly rise for both the NYPD and the Department of Correction.

I believe the 2009 budget plan now reflects a deeply flawed understanding of both the structure of the criminal-justice system and the needs of public safety.

I urge the mayor to work with all five DAs and the City Council to address these important issues before the adopted budget is implemented on July 1.

Robert Johnson is the Bronx district attorney.