Mayor Eric Adams wrapped up his weekend summit on criminal justice Sunday with an appeal for New Yorkers on both sides of the political spectrum to come together for a safer city.
The Summit saw members of law enforcement, judges, district attorneys, and advocacy group leaders descend upon Gracie Mansion over the weekend in order to discuss the current state of the criminal justice system. The Adams administration hoped that each unique perspective could come together and offer insight into how the criminal justice system can better serve New Yorkers.
“I’ve stated this over and over again: There are many rivers that feed the sea of violence and justice. The prerequisite to our prosperity as a city is justice and public safety, they go together, and today, sitting down with every area of the criminal justice system, from judges, to defense attorneys, district attorneys, law makers, police officers, those who are concerned about mental health issues–every part of the criminal justice system was represented,” Adams said during an Oct. 23 call following the summit.
With discussions surrounding criminal justice, it didn’t take long for the contentious topic of bail reform to pop up. Even though the mayor has criticized portions of the law for propagating criminal recidivism, Adams also emphasized that bail reform is just one aspect of a much larger picture that his administration is aiming to discuss.
“How do we ensure that people are able to get the justice they deserve in a fair manner without clogging up and bottlenecking the criminal justice system? We also want to be clear, any time we engage in this conversation around the criminal justice system people highlight one term and that is bail reform. There are so many other aspects of the justice system that we were able to talk through and discuss and we were extremely pleased with the conversations that we had,” Adams explained. “We have an issue around the infrastructure of our criminal justice system, and we must be clear that this antiquated infrastructure is impacting on the ability of New Yorkers seeking justice on both ends of the spectrum. And that is what we walked away with.”
Adams added that he and his team would like to build off of this “infrastructure” in order to create something that will match the needs of the system such as more effective ways of sharing information and a better use of time, so attorneys are not forced to wait hours to merely stand before a judge for less than a minute. However, most imperative of all, Adams said the meeting was about having the conversation and coming to discover what they agree upon.
“What are the common grounds we have? We are going to have disagreements, we’re gonna have things that one may believe is more of a top priority than others. What are the common grounds and we found some, we found some real common grounds about this antiquated infrastructure, and we’re going to zero in on them,” Adams said.
