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ALBANY, N.Y. (WENY) – New York Republican lawmakers are calling for greater public safety measures and introduced a new anti-crime bill to directly address failed and dangerous policies of the past they say.
Assemblyman Phil Palmesano (R, C, I-Corning) 132nd Assembly District says his legislative colleagues and law enforcement officials along with him are sounding the alarm on criminal justice reform measures. They introduced their Restore Order Anti-Crime Initiative in Albany on Tuesday, which they say is crucial to curbing violence.
“Many times dangerous individuals are given more of a priority and are more looked out for than crime victims, their families, and law enforcement. This is done at the cost of public safety. That is why we put together this press conference,” Palmesano said.
Violent offenders are being put back in our streets where they are often reoffending Palmesano explained and says many citizens no longer feel safe in their communities.
“We are seeing a really high rate of people reoffending dangerous individuals being put back on the streets and so we have a whole host of proposals that we put in place or are offering to help our communities be safer,” Palmesano said.
Palmesano also says these are common-sense reforms and they want to offer a number of possible solutions that could be helpful. At the top of that list is restoring judicial discretion back to judges.
“Because right now they are prohibited to take into account the dangerousness of the individual and the impact they can have to the safety of the community,” he said.
The leader of the Republican Conference for the assembly presented some statistics at Tuesday’s press conference.
“Just recently New York City released a report on their supervised release program granted it’s not a state program but it is based on similar to bail reform that we see in this state 28% of those individuals who are freed were rearrested on felony charges,” Will Barclay said.
Palmesano also added he’s not saying there shouldn’t have been changes to bail reform, however he believes DA’s and law enforcement should be involved in these discussions.
The steps he says in order to push this bill forward they need Governor Hochul to act on it.
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