A New York State of Anarchy

Has New York City descended into anarchy? The Justice Department thinks so, and this has allowed Seth Barron to address the question in City Journal. (via Maggie’s Farm)

Of course, the war against policing has given criminals a new lease on freedom-- freedom to commit crimes, that is. 

This cycle is now all too common in New York, where public order and safety have been buffeted by chaotic forces. Criminal-justice reform at the state level removed bail as an option for all but the most heinous charges. Locally, the NYPD has stopped enforcing many quality-of-life laws. The city council passed a law forbidding cops from applying pressure to the chest or back of an arrestee while trying to handcuff him, on the premise that this tactic is tantamount to asphyxiation; officers dealing with a resisting suspect would thus potentially face assault charges if they attempt to restrain him with vigor.

People who believe that the police target minority groups have used the pandemic to empty the prisons-- it’s almost like our own rolling Bastille Day:

The Covid-19 pandemic led to the release of inmates from jails and prisons across New York. “The number of New Yorkers held in NYC jails has plummeted, shrinking by 27% in ten weeks, a steeper population decline than in all of last year,” boasted the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. “The jail population is at a number not seen since 1946.”

As everyone but the idiots running the city and state know, criminals are not looking to become responsible law-abiding citizens. They only really know how to commit crimes, so they commit crimes:

That would be good news if the incarcerated population were tracking the crime rate, but the exact opposite is true. Crime is up dramatically, as released inmates, now adjusted to a climate of permissiveness, resume criminal activity. Advocates for reform sneered at the suggestion that bail reform or pandemic-related releases were responsible for the lawless surge, but arrests have plummeted across the city. It goes against common sense to assume that the rise in crime has nothing to do with the release of thousands of career criminals into the community.

But, our fearful mayor, Comrade de Blasio believes in the revolution. And that has led him to allow, not merely crime, but generalized disruptions of everyday life:

In New York City, it feels as though things are getting out of control. When wildcat protests can take over the streets, blocking traffic at will while cops indicate they have been ordered to stand down, one observes a lack of order. Homeless drug addicts set up camp on lower Broadway and shoot up openly—a sight hard to imagine not long ago, but now common. Hotels on the Upper West Side have been converted into homeless shelters; when neighbors complain about random crime, public defecation, and harassment, local elected officials excoriate them as racists.

Between anarchy and being accused of racism, the city has chosen the former. It reminds one of the grooming gangs in English cities, where Pakistani men preyed on high school girls, gang raped them and sex trafficked them. The local authorities spent years looking away from it, because they were afraid to be called racists.