Pro-crime policies work. Criminal justice reform does wonders.
Take this gentleman who kept being liberated from the indignity of prison only to commit more crimes. If only there were some way to keep criminals from committing more crimes.
Like a big building with bars on the windows.
Career transit thief Charles Barry lengthened his rap sheet by five arrests in the first five weeks of 2020 — and each time he was freed without bail, he ended up accused of more crimes.
A new bail law in New York requires judges to free most suspects arrested for non-violent crimes. Because the pile of charges Barry faces are not violent — including grand larceny, petty larceny and fraudulent accosting — judges were not allowed to send him to jail while the cases were awaiting trial.
Barry has a long history of pickpocketing unsuspecting straphangers, according to criminal complaints and police sources.
Or, as criminal justice reformers call this, non-violent offenses.
He’s recently started pretending to be an MTA worker to grab cash and credit cards from riders hands before darting away, witnesses and police paperwork show.
Barry, 56, has served six terms in state prison — one for selling drugs, the rest for grand larceny — and he has now been arrested 138 times, police sources and records say.
138 times. And 5 times in 5 weeks. At this rate, New York City can have some of the most overachieving criminals.
“At least before, he’d be remanded and be behind bars for a couple of days. He wouldn’t be able to victimize people,” said Assistant Chief Gerald Dieckmann, the No. 2 officer in the NYPD’s Transit Bureau.
That’s over and done with.
Barry’s Legal Aid Society lawyers say locking him up while his case is pending helps no one.
“Mr. Barry’s case underscores the need for economic stability and meaningful social services, not a need to rollback bail reform,” the Society said in a statement. “Locking up Mr. Barry on unaffordable bail or worse, remanding without bail, ultimately does nothing to protect the public and fails entirely to address his actual needs.”
Sure it does.
Barry can’t rob people when he’s in prison. It also helps keep him from committing more crimes and getting a heavier sentence.
Win-win. For everyone except criminal justice reformers.
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