It was part of the police reform initiative. I supported it. But it massively increased the street population of recidivist bastards in a way I didn’t expect.
Roughly half a million people are in jail despite not being convicted of anything. That's roughly 25% of the incarcerated population in the US. 1/4 people behind bars are (presumed) innocent right now, even if they may later be found guilty.
That's a problem. Being in jail for a few weeks or even a few days can totally fuck someone's life over, costing them a job, a relationship, their health, or worse.
And that’s why I supported it. But for every one of the latter there are many of the former because they started cycling through arrests so fast.
Keep the recidivist bastard in jail, on the other hand, and they are incapacitated for the time being. I’ll admit I didn’t see the utility of that until it was too late.
In New York they were one and the same. The latter simply representing the most extreme expression of the former.
I remember dropping into a leftist conference in Philadelphia years ago where several folks who would become the face of post-Covid police reform were there, including Boudin. At the end of the day they all conceded that their goal was abolishing this, that and the other thing.
As a NY resident: lol.
I don't doubt you'll find activists espousing both "defund the police" and "end cash bail" policies at the same time. That doesn't make them the same policy.
Oh, they’re totally different policies. But they’re basically the same politics. And they both generated a backlash, one against messaging (because it was too stupid to implement) and one against policy (because it created more visible crime).