NYPD Top Cop Slams DAs over 'Revolving Door' for Repeat Offenders

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch blasted city district attorneys on Tuesday, claiming that their practice of declining to prosecute some cases has caused the revolving door of justice to “spin faster.”

Several weeks after DA Darcel Clark blasted Tisch at a City Council hearing for the police’s crackdown on the homeless and those accused of misdemeanor crimes, the NYPD’s top cop called out the Bronx as the “absolute best place” to swipe a car.

“Chances are good you’ll only be charged with misdemeanor possession of stolen property and then sent on your way,” Tisch told members at the Citizens Crime Commission during its annual breakfast in Midtown Tuesday. “Auto theft is a felony, so it needs to be charged as a felony. And when you don’t charge appropriately, you end up leading the city in stolen cars by a wide margin.”

Car thefts in the Bronx were up 4% for the first quarter of the year while the rate dropped by more than 12% citywide, Tisch said.

Major crime dropped citywide by 10% for the first three months of the year, from 29,169 crimes last year to 25,987 this year, but “every New Yorker should know that it could be even better,” Tisch added, noting that the crime numbers were “way above” 2019 levels, which was just months before new bail reform rules were enacted.

Tisch and Mayor Adams have been longtime proponents of revising discovery laws, which they claim have allowed low-level criminals to skirt jail time.

Out of those arrested in the first three months of this year, 39% have been re-arrested at least once — a 46% jump over the first quarter of 2018, when bail reform laws didn’t exist, Tisch said. About 21% of those arrested in the first three months of the year have been arrested at least three times.

“The recidivism rates are out of our control,” she said. “The revolving door of the criminal justice system is spinning faster than ever, putting violent repeat offenders back on our streets over and over again and everyday New Yorkers are the ones who suffer as a result.”

Tisch blamed the high recidivism rates on borough district attorneys who take a light approach at prosecuting non-violent and property crimes and either “decline cases or effectively dismiss cases through adjournments in contemplation of dismissal.”

“I have challenged each of them to re-evaluate any blanket policy that makes the revolving door spin faster,” she said, not calling out any particular DA by name.  “We have seen even violent, repeat offenders be given every courtesy, granted every excuse and released after being told, ‘Please, just don’t do it again. And guess what? They do it again and again and again because they know that right now, the benefits of crime outweigh the consequences.

“When you remove consequences for a certain crime you get more of that crime,” she said. “I’m channeling the voice of virtually every NYPD cop and everyday New Yorkers when I say, enough is enough.”

Clark has been an outspoken opponent of Commissioner Tisch’s  ongoing subway crackdown —  in which a focus on homeless issues and minor infractions such as sleeping across seats has led to the arrest of many offenders wanted for other crimes — as well as the creation of a new quality of life enforcement division, saying these new efforts are another form of “broken windows” policing where cops enforce violations and minor misdemeanors with the belief that not doing so prevents a sense of disorder that can lead to more serious crimes.

“Now is not the time to retreat to broken windows policing,” Clark said at a City Council budget hearing in March. “Now is the time to look ahead to 21st century solutions aimed at keeping the Bronx safe. We start by identifying the root causes of crime and addressing the underlying conditions that lead to a cycle of violence and recidivism.

“I am unapologetic about who I am and the work I do,” she said.

Am email to Clark’s office for comment was not immediately returned.

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