New Yorkers are "suffering through two viruses," criminal justice reform and COVID-19 in "Cuckoo-land," according to former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton.
"New Yorkers are now suffering through two viruses: One that's taking hundreds and thousands of lives; the other that's putting hundreds of thousands of lives an absolute fear of people breaking into their apartments," Bratton told Sunday's "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y., rebuking "the virus that the legislature created."
"On the one hand, we are trying to protect from the coronavirus, and on the other hand, we're creating a criminal virus threat – Cuckoo-land," he added.
Bratton has long been a critic of New York's ending of cash bail and even the fixes have not addressed the problems it has created.
"The reforms weren't any better than the original legislation, and it still doesn't give judges power to determine who can be released and held by police before trial, and who should be held for public safety reasons," Bratton told host John Catsimatidis.
Bratton also lamented on the release of prisoners from Rikers Island amid the pandemic.
"They have 9,000 corrections officers out there, 4,000 prisoners, and a jail that used to house 22,000," he said. "You'd think they'd be able to space them out enough that we could safely keep them out there and keep them away from the public.
"But instead, they're moving forward with criminal justice reform where they are literally celebrating that they have less than 4,000 incarcerated."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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