The new criminal justice reform movement is destroying our ability to debate
Last month, New York City Mayor and onetime progressive reformer Eric Adams was heckled by the graduating class of the City University of New York Law School. When he noted his own history as a protester within the police department, he was heckled more. “Adams had the audacity to compare his tenure in NYPD to the discipline, principles, and commitment of our class,” one student was quoted saying. “Within our short time at CUNY Law, we’ve served and protected the citizens of New York City more than his 20-plus years as a cop.”
This kind of virtue-preening is now de rigueur among the progressives behind the national criminal justice reform agenda. While claiming moral high ground by demonizing both the system itself and a previous generation of reformers like Adams, the results of the movement’s efforts so far are not encouraging. Snowballing reform policies and shrinking police departments and prosecutors’ offices have contributed to national homicide rates 34% higher last year than in 2019, auto theft rates up 59%, and organized retail crime so rampant that Walgreens closed 10 San Francisco stores in recent years.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Tablet
______________________
Hannah Meyers is director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute.
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images