The wheels are starting to come off of NJ Bail Reform as the Attorney General requests “modifications” as pressure mounts from law enforcement.
In a letter addressed to Judge Glenn Grant, acting administrative director of New Jersey Courts, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office is requesting the court consider “making certain modifications” to address outrage from law enforcement and local officials.
US Bail Reform Commentary…
The failures of New Jersey Bail Reform are well documented.
Violent offenders are being released daily with ZERO accountability and ZERO supervision on nothing more than a “pinky promise.” An innocent victim has died – another dead of an overdose – citizens victimized – cops are frustrated – all under the watchful eye of Pretrial Services…who are accountable for nothing.
With the system in such chaos, it’s irresponsible that it has taken this long to recognize that meaningful changes to the system must be a priority moving forward. Legislators continue to ignore meaningful proposed legislation to address the problems with bail reform…all while the victims pile up and the safety of our communities are compromised.
The judiciary (who conveniently did not comment on NJTV News’s report) continues to praise bail reform – along with their bedfellow Alexander Shalom and the ACLU.
Who exactly are you protecting again with bail reform? If you worked even half as hard helping the poor and those struggling to feed their family as you do turning defendants into victims…the world would be a better place.
NJTVNEWS broke the story – Apr 13 2017
NJ AG’s Office Asks for Modifications to Bail Reform
(reported by NJTV News – Apr 13 2017)
In a letter, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has asked the architect of bail reform — Judge Glenn Grant who heads the Administrative Office of the Courts — to “consider making certain modifications” in how the new bail reform system assesses and determines risk of releasing criminal defendants in gun and eluding the police cases because the ways it’s done now “undervalue the danger posed by defendants.”
Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop called bail reform flawed last month. He said 19-year-old DaJour Riley should still be alive, not murdered just days after his release from jail last month on an illegal gun charge considered a non-violent crime.
“The only way we can completely turn the corner on preventing this type of gun violence is if the cases are dealt with by the courts aggressively when it deals with guns,” he said.
In January on WBGO’s Newark Today, Mayor Ras Baraka said the state should attach resources and services from organizations and nonprofits to those released from jail for drug and gun offenses.
“Don’t just ignore that and allow them to be back in the population of the community that, you know, is already grappling with serious levels of violence,” Baraka said.
Starting on Jan. 1, bail reform has taken money out of the equation, instead evaluating the person’s risk to public safety and likelihood of showing up for court.
In its letter, the Attorney General’s Office says it was sharing the responses of law enforcement officers and county prosecutors and “without modification” to how the system scores risk “our communities will face the dangers of those who choose, among other things, to terrorize others.”
“I think it’s an act of political grandstanding,” said Alexander Shalom, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Jersey.
Shalom says assessing risk to public safety is based on science.
“We know that people with low risk scores have been detained on firearm offenses in certain cases when the state is able to show that the person poses an unacceptable risk to public safety. But that’s not true in every case. And that’s what the attorney general is now asking the courts to do, is to ignore the science, ignore the data and rely on these couple stories to say, OK now we should change the whole system,” he said.
Both the Attorney General’s Office and the Administrative Office of the Courts declined on-camera interviews, but the AOC issued this statement: “We are exploring modifications to the Public Safety Assessment and working with all segments of the criminal justice system to make sure we come up with the right balance.”
The chair of the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee acknowledges the system needs modifying.
You’ve been LIED to New Jersey…NJ Bail Reform is RECKLESS, DANGEROUS, and YOU are PAYING for it.
Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.