Evening Roundup: Adams Administration Behind on Section 8 Goal, Gov. Hochul Plans to Fund School Cellphone Ban, and NY’s Bail Reform Law Turns 5

Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. Data obtained by WNYC shows that the Adams' Administration is falling well short of its stated goal to issue 1,000 Section 8 housing vouchers a month. Mayor Eric Adams made the pledge at his State of the City address last year. The data shows the city is only issuing about 250 vouchers a month. Jessica Valencia says that's not enough. She's co-founder of Unlock NYC, a group that helps people find housing.

Jessica Valencia: Now more than ever, New Yorkers need the rental assistance to help them pay rent.

Janae Pierre: Section 8 vouchers provide tenants with federal rental assistance. The New York City Housing Authority is in charge of the program. NYCHA officials say they're prioritizing applicants with mobility impairments, like people who use wheelchairs. They also say it's taking more time to process those applications, but that the agency is ramping up outreach to meet the mayor's goal.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul wants to keep most students from using their phones during school hours. WNYC's Jon Campbell has more.

Jon Campbell: Hochul is including a phone ban in her $252 billion state budget proposal. In fact, the state would even help school pay for pouches or other equipment to lock phones up during the day. If lawmakers approve, the governor says it'll apply from opening bell to closing bell.

Governor Kathy Hochul: Our kids will finally be freed from the endless disruptions of social media and all the mental health pressures that come from it.

Jon Campbell: Legislative leaders say they're open to the governor's plan. They'll spend the coming months negotiating a final state budget, which is due by the end of March.

Janae Pierre: It's been five years since sweeping changes to New York's hotly contested bail reform law took effect. After the break, we look at the effects of bail reform since the law has been in place. Stay close. It's been five years since sweeping changes to New York's criminal justice laws took effect. The legislative package was known as bail reform.

It set limits on when people who have been arrested can be held in jail as they await trial. My colleague Tiffany Hanssen talked with WNYC's Samantha Max about the effects of bail reform and what additional changes could come in the year ahead.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, a lot has happened in the five years since bail reform took effect. So let's just take a step back. Remind us what bail reform is.

Samantha Max: Bail reform is part of a legislative package that aimed to make New York's court system more equitable. It was very divisive. Supporters said it would make the system more fair, opponents said it would undermine public safety but regardless of all this debate, it passed in 2019 and took effect in 2020.

It essentially limited when judges can set bail, so it barred them from requiring people to pay for their release from jail after arrest for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. One goal was to prevent people from languishing in jail and facing possible dangers on the notorious Rikers Island.

Another goal was to lessen the disparity in who gets out of jail pre trial because of income. Many people who are arrested just can't afford bail. Before bail reform, people typically got out because they had money, not because they were more dangerous, necessarily. Bail reform was also meant to bolster supervised release programs, where people can go home while they await trial, but are supposed to get some sort of support to keep them out of trouble in the meantime.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, Sam, you said back in 2019, the legislation, the proposal was very divisive. That still is the case. Criminal justice advocates, public defenders celebrate bail reform. Some critics say it's making New York less safe. Where is the truth here?

Samantha Max: It's probably somewhere in the middle. Mayor Adams and NYPD brass have frequently criticized bail reform. They say the changes made it too easy for people to get back on the street and commit more crimes. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch blamed lawmakers for an increase in the number of people who have been rearrested for certain types of crimes while awaiting trial.

Jessica Tisch: The key driving factor is the revolving door of our criminal justice system, created in large part by legislative changes that took effect in 2020.

Samantha Max: There's a common refrain about people repeatedly committing crimes because of bail reform that's frequently repeated at press conferences, in the media, online, especially when these high profile crimes happen.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, Sam, when you go out and you talk to New Yorkers, what do you hear?

Samantha Max: I mean, it's something that comes up all the time when I'm interviewing people for different stories I'm working on about whether people in New York are feeling safe, whether they feel like the court system is working. Sometimes people are arrested with new charges while they're out, and these stories make it into the zeitgeist and people are scared.

That feeling can also fuel debates among politicians about how to move forward. The legislature has rolled back bail reform multiple times to address these concerns. They've allowed judges to set bail in more types of cases, like when someone is arrested repeatedly for shoplifting but researchers have been looking into this data a ton.

They have found that overall, rearrests have not jumped for people who are released while awaiting trial, especially if they've never been arrested before and are just facing a minor crime but researchers have found that the rate of rearrest has gone up for a small group of people who are considered high risk.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, let's talk about that research, Sam. A report looked at an aspect of bail reform that's gotten less attention. Tell us about that in the report, will you?

Samantha Max: Yes. There's a portion of the legislation that was supposed to help to make bail more affordable for people when judges do set it because affordability is a huge factor when it comes to bail. Loved ones who are often working with limited resources, they sometimes end up emptying savings and retirement accounts or even skipping meals and rent payments to get friends and relatives out of jail.

Researchers from NYU Law and a judicial transparency group called Scrutinize, they looked at this portion of bail reform that that required judges to give criminal defendants at least three different ways to post bail when it's set. One of those ways was supposed to be a bond that they can pay directly to the court instead of to a bail bonding company.

The study found that in the first four years after the law took effect, judges rarely made this the most affordable option.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, so there are these differences in the amount of bail for each of these options. Why is that?

Samantha Max: We don't know why that is, but the effect is that different options end up being more enticing for loved ones and often it's the option to pay a bail bonding company, which might technically be cheaper in the short term, but actually more expensive in the long term because the difference is that when you pay the court directly, you get your money back at the end of the case, as long as the criminal defendant shows up to all their court dates and follows the judge's orders.

If you pay a bail bonding company, the fee isn't refundable, and you might have to put up other collateral, like the deed to your home. I spoke with Alana Sivin with the Vera Institute for Justice. She says these high bail amounts make it nearly impossible for people awaiting trial to go home and provide for their families.

Alana Sivin: It seems that if judges are setting bail on these really high amounts, that they're not really seeing that the intent essentially is to make it onerous and potentially to make it so that it's very unlikely that they'll be able to pay it.

Samantha Max: The Office of Court administration says it's reviewing the report.

Tiffany Hanssen: Well, state lawmakers are back in Albany at this point, Sam, can we expect more conversation around bail reform this year?

Samantha Max: I mean, there have already been so many tweaks to this legislation in the years since it's passed so it's unclear if there will be more this year, but some lawmakers have proposed a bill that could affect a different portion of this whole legislative package that took effect five years ago. That was known as Discovery Reform.

It required prosecutors to turn over more evidence to defense attorneys and more quickly. This Bill would give DA's offices direct access to police databases so they wouldn't have to wait for law enforcement to turn over the materials. It has support from some city district attorneys, including Alvin Bragg and Eric Gonzalez and public defender groups have also expressed their support, like the Legal Aid Society.

We'll see if that proposal gets passed and whether it could alleviate the problem.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Samantha Max talking with my colleague Tiffany Hanssen. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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