President Trump, who had no problem taking a victory lap over federal criminal justice reform, has been happy to whack his former home state. Experience elsewhere and ample research show that there is no reason to believe New York’s reforms will lead to mayhem, or endanger the public. In fact, studies suggest the opposite may be true: that pretrial detention makes people likelier to commit future crimes. Pretrial detention, which involves jailing people who have been arrested for a crime but not yet convicted of it, comes with enormous costs, to individuals and society. Pretrial detention costs the United States an estimated $14 billion each year.

Source: New York Times November 17, 2019 23:26 UTC