By Richard Aborn
It’s time to break the glass and pull the alarm. The spike in gun crimes has reached crisis levels in New York. To date this year, shootings are up 77% and murders up 17% compared to last year. If you look at the increase since 2019, the numbers are even more alarming, with shootings up 110% and murders up 49.6%. This May saw an 73% increase in shootings versus May of last year. And this is all before the “high crime season” of summer has even begun. This is a moment to act quickly and decisively.
Understandably, reform has dominated the conversation for the better part of the last 18 months. In doing so, the second part of the conversation — that we will continue to aggressively pursue violent crime — has been dropped, and with it, too often, accountability for those who harm others. We must alter that view by sending a clear, consistent message that reform is critically important but so is responding to violent crime. We must also keep at the forefront the fact that swiftness and certainty of punishment provide more deterrence than harshness.
How do we accomplish this?
More from the NY Daily News here.