"Anarchy!" Conservatives lose their minds over moderate criminal reform

The backlash is getting intense.

Yesterday, the New York Post gleefully reported that “embattled” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking help from a public relations expert as well as his former boss, former US Attorney Preet Bharara.

What grand misdeeds is the D.A. guilty of after 18 whole days in office?

Earlier this month, Bragg issued a memo directing prosecutors to limit pre-trial detention to cases of homicide, domestic violence, and high-level financial crimes. He also set sentencing limits—20 years maximum—and told staff to stop charging misdemeanors like resisting arrest. Prosecutors were also instructed to not seek jail time for gun possession alone.

Bragg’s policies, if he sticks with them, should help depopulate the dangerously overcrowded Rikers jail complex and limit the public’s interactions with the criminal justice system.

Criminal justice experts have pointed out that Bragg’s changes are not nearly as sweeping as they appear. “These are modest changes that once again are being lied about and twisted by police and pro-carceral forces to mislead and scare the public into rejecting commonsense reforms,” Scott Hechinger, a New York based former defense attorney and Founder & Executive Director Zealous tells me. “Instead they want the public to continue to support the same costly and failed mass incarceration policies of the last half-century.”

Hechinger worked as a public defender for 10 years. He notes that the class of cases Bragg wants to downgrade to lower-level felonies or misdemeanors end up that way anyway—but only after months of costly pretrial jail time. Often, Hechinger notes, pre-trial detention “exceeds the sentence the person is ultimately given. “That is called ‘truth in charging,’" Hechinger says.

But it’s no wonder Bragg is arming up with professional P.R. help. Despite the less-than-radical nature of his directive, law enforcement figures are reacting as if he’s ushering in Purge-style dystopia.

George Soros destroying US cities

Financier George Soros’ philanthropic work has sparked endless conspiracy theories, most of them anti-Semitic (global cabal, et al).

When he’s not aiding the Democrats’ international pedo ring though, this mastermind is undermining law and order here at home, according to former police commissioner William Bratton. Soros has “effectively destroyed the criminal justice system in America,” he said. He add Bragg’s directive would “handcuff the police.”

New York Post columnist Bob McManus accused Bragg of giving the “green light for anarchy.” You know who loves large-scale societal breakdown? 91-year-old billionaires. “Off somewhere wearing a sardonic smile must be billionaire George Soros, McManus writes…."the arch-anarchist who’s been lavishing big bucks on progressive district attorney candidates for years now, and who kicked in a reported $1 million to Bragg’s campaign last year.”

“Bragg holds America’s foremost local law enforcement office in terms of volume, influence and prestige,” McManus continues. “In other words, whatever it is that Soros has in mind, Bragg both owes him and is perfectly positioned to oblige him — and on the grandest stage in America.”

Congressman Lee Zeldin, running for Governor of New York, wants to “Save Our State!” To that end, he’s calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to remove Bragg from office. You know, merely subvert the results of a Democratic election.

“Governor Hochul must remove Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for his refusal to enforce the law,” he Tweeted. “She has that power & must act NOW! As Governor, I would REMOVE any DA refusing to enforce the laws. We must protect our police officers & make New York streets safer.”

The Governor of New York has the power to remove elected officials in the event of serious ethics violations, but “follow through on campaign promises” is not on the list. Neither is “instituting policy unpopular with police leadership.” Andrew H. Giuliani, scion of a clan long-associated with ethical governance, also called on Hochul to remove Bragg.

Bragg concluded his inauguration speech with “Survive the night!” No, the Harvard grad and former prosecutor chalked up his victory to voters’ concern about balancing safety and justice.

“I feel like the voters of Manhattan responded to the message of marrying fairness and safety,” Bragg told Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max on the Max Politics podcast, adding later, “the key language I really tried to drill down on during the campaign is how we respond to those public safety issues. I’ve seen the failures of this, you know, ‘law and order,’ ‘war on drugs’ approach, which locks up whole communities. That’s not true public safety. That’s just bad public policy."

Pat Lynch, head of the Police Benevolent Association, slammed Bragg for emboldening criminals even more than they already are.

"There are already too many people who believe that they can commit crimes, resist arrest, interfere with police officers and face zero consequences," says Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch. Yes, and many of those people are in the NYPD. While 40 percent of NYPD staff have no records of lawsuits, a large minority have cost taxpayers millions by using excessive force, making false arrests, committing sexual assault, stop-and-frisk, illegal searches. Perhaps the PBA and other law enforcement interests should pay attention to the anarchy in their ranks before excoriating Bragg for not using city resources to jail teenagers for jumping a turnstile.

For those interested a good conspiracy, perhaps a better place than Soros’ Open Society Foundation is to look at the collusion of cops, police unions, conservative media, and business interests trying to thwart the most minimal reforms.

“This is exactly the same thing happening in San Francisco, Chicago … it’s fear-mongering to get a great investment in police,” Hechinger says. " It’s blowback. And it shows their desperation and fear over the fact that these forces have never been threatened before and now they are … just a little bit. So they are fear-mongering and lying outright.”