New York City’s crime problems are hugely driven by recidivists — and that’s true underground just as it is above.
Look at the five biggest criminals recently rounded up as part of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s push to clean up the subway.
They had close to 600 busts between them, almost 120 per thug, including over 100 arrests for violent felonies like robbery and rape.
These are bad apples.
Like Robert Davis, with an insane 19 felony arrests.
And Jorge Molina, with 60 felony offenses.
Davis is an old hand at 56 and Molina’s 36 — but the kids are getting their licks in too, with 28-year-old Kenney Mitchell also getting caught in the dragnet: He has 116 priors.
Those three all had active warrants out, and so got sent to jail.
They were all busted underground for far lesser offenses, however — fresh proof that fighting “minor” offenses like fare beating, smoking on trains and the like means catching hardcore crooks as well.
No shock there: If you’re the kind of sociopath to rack up 60 — 60! — felony offenses, you’re also the kind to jump turnstiles, light up on the platform, etc.
So plainly, if you crack down hard on recidivism, you’ve already made major progress battling crime.
Yet the two others of the “worst five,” William Watts (114 priors, including three for robbery and two for assault) and Pablo Colon (103 arrest, including 16 felony charges for burglary, robbery, assault and grand larceny), were let loose after their subway arrests — because “reformers” have completely decriminalized “minor” offenses, leaving prosecutors and courts no discretion to get tougher on the worst of the worst.
That is: In the name of protecting first-time offenders, criminal justice reformers needlessly shielded serious recidivists.
The underground offensive comes as Tisch is forming a new division to fight quality-of-life crimes, a return to the “broken windows” policing of the past — after making very clear she understands that our disastrous criminal justice reforms, city and state, are the rocket fuel for our crime crisis.
Fighting quality-of-life crime played a pivotal role in turning Gotham from a criminal’s paradise into a law-abiding big city.
The left’s been loosing howls of outrage ever since; the election of Bill de Blasio and other crime-loving progressives plus those criminal justice reforms have given them a decade-plus beachhead in helping crooks and hurting the law-abiding.
Tisch must ignore their criticisms and forge ahead on this path: The literal life of her city is at stake.
