The Onondaga County Legislature is urging state lawmakers to roll back a controversial bail reform law.

The law, which took effect Jan. 1, eliminated cash bail and pretrial detention for most nonviolent crimes. Supporters of the law argue the reform will help reduce mass incarceration in New York state, while opponents believe it poses a threat to public safety.

The county Legislature passed a resolution this month calling for the bill to be amended or rescinded for further discussion. Both parties in the Legislature are advocating that the law must consider the safety of its constituents, said Debra Cody, Onondaga County legislator for the 5th District.

“Our position is that this bill needs to be amended or pulled back until it can be done in a more thoughtful manner,” Cody said.

Under the reform law, people accused of misdemeanors and most nonviolent felonies can be released prior to trial, with an agent ensuring the individuals appear in court. People were previously placed in pretrial detention if they couldn’t afford to pay their bail or if a judge found them ineligible to be released before trial.

The law allows individuals who wouldn’t have been able to afford bail to maintain their family and career responsibilities and contribute to the defense of their case, said Derek Andrews, a senior attorney at Nave Law Firm who specializes in bail reform.

Jail populations across the state have diminished significantly since the law went into effect, he said. As of October, 60% of Onondaga County’s average daily jail population was held in pretrial detention, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

“The state had a really bad track record of keeping poor, impoverished defendants — and people — in jail pending a resolution of their cases when those people are innocent until proven guilty,” Andrews said.

The reform law mandates that police provide an appearance ticket to an individual immediately upon arrest, Andrews said. Police may still decide to hold a person in jail if the individual is accused of rape in the third degree or if they prove to be a violent threat to their family, Andrews said.

Once a judge sees the individual for an arraignment, they decide on whether the person will receive a securing order, which would release them under the supervision of a pretrial services agency, Andrews said.

The New York state Legislature passed the bail reform law in April 2019. District attorneys and law enforcement were involved in conversations with members of the legislature prior to the law’s enactment and are the most vocal opponents of it, he said.

Transformative legislation is always opposed, said Katie Schaffer, director of organizing and advocacy at the Center for Community Alternatives, a nonprofit advocating for community-based alternatives to incarceration in New York state.

“Under the old law, we had a system of mass pretrial jailing that violated the presumption of innocence, that treated people as guilty until proven innocent,” Schaffer said.

Reform advocates argue that lawmakers should give the new law more time and wait for more data before discussing any changes. Rensselaer, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Warren and Greene counties also passed resolutions asking to amend the law.

“There is more work to do, but that work is not the work of mass jailing or locking people up pretrial or rolling back the law,” Schaffer said.

Published on February 16, 2020 at 8:40 pm

Contact Sarah: scalessa@syr.edu | @sarahalessan