Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to improve public safety during her Sunday inauguration speech, following a year of high violent crime in the state.
Hochul said authorities must ensure that New Yorkers can be “free from fear” in streets, subways and schools, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic for causing damage to the social fabric that contributed to crime increases. Gun violence killed over 37% more people across 20 police jurisdictions statewide from January through November 2022 than the average for those months over the previous five years, despite a relative decrease compared to 2021, according to New York State Criminal Justice Services Division data.
Violent crime has particularly impacted New York City. Its year-to-date murder complaints through Dec. 25 decreased compared to 2021, while rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto complaints all went up, contributing to a more than 30% overall spike across those offenses, police data showed.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg issued a memo in early January 2022 saying his office would treat armed robberies without a seriously injured victim or “genuine risk of physical harm” as misdemeanors and not pursue prison sentences for crimes other than murder, other violent felonies, sex offenses or major white collar crimes. Following the killing of a police officer whose widow decried Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies later that month, Hochul warned the district attorney in a private meeting that she could force him to make changes, the New York Post reported.
Bragg said in a February memo that his office would prosecute anyone “who harms or attempts to harm a police officer” and charge commercial armed robberies as felonies. He claimed the January memo was supposed to provide a “framework” but had been “a source of confusion.”
Hochul’s Republican November election opponent Lee Zeldin vowed to fire Bragg immediately upon taking office and declare a crime emergency. Zeldin ultimately lost by fewer votes than any Republican New York gubernatorial nominee in the previous four elections.
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