If NY doesnt amend discovery laws, proverbial broken windows will remain broken

New Yorkers are fed up with crime and disorder.Recent polling shows that public safety is the top concern for Gotham voters in this fall’s mayoral race—and with good reason.Rates for major, violent and property crimes all remain between 25% and 30% above 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, low-level offending, from evading fare to punching strangers, has turned streets, stores and subways into zones of danger and distrust.But in order to effectively combat this degradation, New York must first confront the false narrative that “small” crimes don’t matter.This idea has been growing for the past decade — enabled (ironically) by the increasing safety created through “broken windows” policies that specifically enforced these quality-of-life crimes.

New Yorkers came to feel so safe that they could indulge in the illusion that the criminal justice system needn’t bother imposing consequences for anything short of horrific felonies.And so, we started enacting state laws that made it literally impossible to punish low-level offenses.But low-level crimes do matter: They have victims, reduce trust between citizens — and inevitably feed more dangerous offending.With debates roiling this coming week over amending the discovery law, citizens need to tell Albany that all crimes matter and we want laws that treat them that way.This would mean amending the radical “Raise the Age” legislation enacted in 2018, which barred sending 16- and 17-year-olds to Criminal Court for anything short of the most heinous felonies.

Since then, essentially all misdemeanors committed by these teens go straight to cushy Family Court — as do 83% of felonies and 75% of even violent felonies.There, their crimes are forgiven and erased over and over.

No wonder youth arrests for even major crimes have spiked 69% over the past five years!Then, in 2019, statewide bail “reform” was enacted, dictating that those who commit misdemeanors and some low-level felonies absolut...