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Mayor Eric Adams said that “cooler heads prevailed” in Albany on negotiating changes to progressive-pushed criminal justice policies enacted in 2019, as state lawmaker and Gov. Kathy Hochul continue to try and work out a deal for the overdue state budget.
During an interview on CBS2 that aired Wednesday, the former NYPD captain expressed optimism about the ongoing negotiations on the fiscal year 2023 spending plan, centered on bail reform, funding for the Buffalo Bills new stadium and New York City casinos.
“I think that cooler heads prevailed,” he said of potential amendments to new pre-trial laws, which prevented judges from setting bail for those accused of most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies.
“They sat down, they said, ‘Let’s look at this,’ and let’s see how do we come to a meeting of the minds of protecting New Yorkers without allowing the abuse that we saw in the past,” he added, referring to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-the Bronx) and State Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins (D- Yonkers).
But Adams — who in recent months has pushed for state lawmakers to give judges more power to jail defendants before their trials — cautioned that he won’t declare “mission accomplished” before the budget is finalized like former President George Bush famously did in 2003 during the beginning of the Iraq war.
“We don’t know what the ending package — you don’t know, [in] Albany, you’re in the Twilight Zone of uncertainty before the bills are printed,” he said during the pre-taped interview. “What I don’t want to do is, I don’t want to make the Bush mistake and say ‘Mission Accomplished.’ We have to accomplish the mission.”
Following a spate of high-profile crimes committed by repeat offenders, Hochul proposed a 10-point plan that expanded the list of crimes that are bail eligible in New York, after leaders in the legislature’s two chambers repeatedly rejected more restrictive bail measures. The state legislature and the governor are now poised to include tweaks to bail reform laws in the new budget, which is set to pass by the end of the week.
The mayor credited regular Empire State residents for the likely passage of certain tough-on-crime legislative measures pushed by moderate Democrats like Adams as well as Republicans.
“I don’t think it was Eric Adams only; I think it was New Yorkers,” he said. “The polls stated clearly that New Yorkers, this was the agenda that was on the top of their minds. I think my partners in Albany, they heard that.”
A recent survey showed that 56 percent of voters in the Empire State believe the 2019 bail reform has been bad for New York compared to 30 percent who said it was good policy. The Siena College survey found that nearly two-thirds of voters believe the law has resulted in an increase in crime.
During the interview, Adams also declared that he is “committed” to closing the recently troubled jail complexes on Rikers Island by 2027, and replacing them with one pre-trial detention facility in every borough except for Staten Island.
“I’m committed to closing Rikers, based on the rule in law that came out of the City Council, and I’m going to really respect what came out under the previous administration,” he told CBS’ Marcia Kramer. “They passed a law that stated Rikers could no longer be used as a prison or jail.”
Adams has faced backlash from some local lawmakers for supporting the Rikers replacement jails enacted in 2019 by the City Council and former Mayor Bill de Blasio. The four new jails are slated to be constructed on the site of the NYPD’s Bronx tow pound, at the now-closed Queens Detention Center in Kew Gardens and at the current sites of the Brooklyn Detention Complex in Boerum Hill and Manhattan Detention Complex in Chinatown.
Last year, 16 people died in Department of Correction custody, more than the previous two years combined.
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