TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 15-21, 2022 12
EDITORIALS
While Mayor Adams’ administration is taking steps to combat the city’s rising crime rate, substantial change will take time.
Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
OTHER VOICES
As most of us know, we are in a period of inflation.
The dictionary states that inflation is an excessive
or persistent increase in the general price of
goods and services and, as a result, it causes a decline
in a person’s purchasing power.
Well, to me, that means the prices are too damn high!
Inflation is hurting many American families who are
struggling. It is also hurting many senior citizens who
must make choices about buying medications, paying
housing costs or even buying food.
Being 72 years old, I’m a senior citizen and understand
that only too well.
I was in the supermarket, like I am on every Saturday,
buying food for my wife and myself. Two years ago, our
food budget was $80 a week. Now, we average $120 to $130
a week for the same food items!
We have a fixed income and had to cut things out to
make ends meet.
Meanwhile, I have been working for the same company
for 42 years and now work part time. I wonder if I
could ever fully retire with the high cost of living.
I’m asking President Biden and Congress, as well as
Mayor Adams and our local representatives, to do something.
The prices are too damn high, and that has to change!
Frederick R. Bedell Jr.,
Bellerose
The long crime fight
In his first three months in office, Mayor Eric Adams
has compared the surge of gun violence in New York
City to a roaring river flooding the town.
“The sea of violence comes from many rivers. We must
dam every river that feeds this greater crisis,” Adams said back
in January when he announced his plan to tackle gun violence, including
the introduction of new NYPD teams dedicated to locking
up gun-toting criminals.
The effort appears to be starting to bear fruit. In announcing
the March crime statistics on April 6, NYPD Commissioner
Keechant Sewell reported “record numbers” of arrests during
the month, including 410 collars specifically for gun-related offenses.
Still, the NYPD reported an overall major crime increase of
36.5% — the third straight month with a crime spike of 30% or
higher. Murders and rapes dropped, but shootings were still up
13.5% — and property crimes such as robbery, grand larceny and
burglary were each up more than 40%.
Murders and shootings make the headlines and pose the most
lethal threat to New York City’s safety. But property crimes are a
serious problem that, left unabated, threatens the long-term stability
and security of the city.
People need to feel safe walking on the street or leaving their
home unattended for a few hours. Sewell and Adams have both
vowed to restore that sense of security through increased NYPD
efforts to tackle crime, but they also insist that the state revisit
some of the bail and other criminal justice reforms enacted in
recent years.
“It’s clear we are confronting a perception among criminals
that there are no consequences even for serious crime,” Sewell
said on April 7. “We need tangible changes with a balanced system
that puts victims first. It must be fair, but it must first and
foremost favor the people it was designed to safeguard and protect.”
As it has been said before, reforming the reform doesn’t mean
killing the reform entirely. The bail reform changes enacted in
2020 were necessary to close a major disparity in the criminal
justice system, allowing nonviolent offenders and defendants to
be set free after arrest rather than confined with violent criminals
in jails.
But it is clear the system is flawed, and those flaws — combined
with the economic and mental trauma inflicted during the
COVID-19 pandemic — has undoubtedly contributed to New York
City’s crime problem.
Changing the criminal justice system for the better in concert
with bolstering the city’s economy and supporting the NYPD’s
crime-fighting efforts are the way in which this crime spike
will be turned back. No one, however, should expect substantial
change in weeks or months or even years.
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THE PRICES ARE TOO DAMN HIGH!
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