NJ mayors want to alter bail reform to jail those arrested on gun charges before trial

As gun violence spirals throughout the state, a handful of New Jersey's urban mayors gathered with state lawmakers in Paterson on Tuesday to endorse a bill that would all but force judges to jail those arrested on gun charges without bail until their cases can be heard in court.

Advocates say the changes would fix a perceived flaw in the state's landmark 2017 bail reform law, which dismantled an antiquated cash bail system that reformers said unfairly punished low-income people of color who could not afford bail. But the law has also led to the relatively quick release of many people charged with low-level offenses, including gun possession. Some city and state officials say this may be contributing to New Jersey's dramatic spike in gun killings over the past three years.

"We want to make sure that those who are arrested with illegal weapons are detained so they're not back on the streets, either doing the shooting or becoming the next shooting victim," Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said at a Tuesday morning news conference in the City Council chambers. "We're looking to reform bail reform. We're not looking to end it. We're looking to mend it."

But the size of the problem Sayegh and the other members of the New Jersey Urban Mayors Association are trying to fix remains unclear. Despite anecdotal stories, there is little hard evidence that bail reform has led to more crime.

And none of the officials in attendance Tuesday — who included the mayors of Paterson, Newark, Trenton, East Orange and several other cities, as well as members of the state Legislature — could provide statistics about how many people arrested on gun charges were charged with another crime after their release.

In Paterson, police arrested 195 people on gun charges in 2021, Sayegh said. Of those, authorities released 75 before their trial.

But the mayor could not say how many in that group committed another offense while they were out awaiting trial.

"We don't need to see statistics to know that we have an epidemic," Sayegh said.

As in much of the country, gun killings have skyrocketed in the Garden State during the pandemic.

Between 2019 and 2020, shooting deaths rose by 44% to 228, according to state police data. They jumped another 12% the next year, reaching 244 deaths in 2021.

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This carnage, combined with several high-profile killings of police officers in New York City and elsewhere, has led politicians to reach back through the decades to resurrect the hard-edged rhetoric of the 1990s "tough-on-crime" era.

"If you get caught with a gun, that's it, you're going to get detained,'' Sayegh said recently, adding that the proposed law would apply to first offenders. "I don't care. You're going to have evil intentions."

Introduced in the state Senate last month by Democratic lawmakers Joseph Cryan of Union County and Shirley K. Turner of Mercer County, the bill would establish the presumption that a defendant facing mandatory jail time for a gun crime should be kept in jail before trial.

It has since been referred to the chamber's Law and Public Safety Committee.

Through a spokeswoman, Cryan said ordering pretrial detention would alleviate "any immediate dangers to the community, while ensuring that a fair trial is still pursued."

On Tuesday, several mayors echoed his call.

"We want a solid law that allows people who do not belong in jail because of financial reasons the opportunity to come home," said Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. "We also want a pathway for those who are committing violent crimes to stay inside and not become a terror to our community and our families."

"Folks can get arrested on a Monday with a gun, and on Friday they're back out and we're arresting them again," added East Orange Mayor Ted R. Green, who noted that officials from his city support the amendment.

Under New Jersey's law, most first-time or low-risk offenders are released without bail after the court evaluates their risk based on their history, the nature of the offense and other factors.

But high-risk offenders — and those accused of major crimes — are detained without bail.

Not everyone is convinced the proposed changes are necessary.

Yannick Wood, director of the criminal justice reform program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, called it a knee-jerk reaction that would undermine the bipartisan bail reform law.

Judges already have discretion to hold suspects charged with gun crimes, Wood said. Spelling it out in the statute would signal a return to a set of failed policies that led to a raft of criminal justice abuses, he said.

"By creating a carve-out for firearms offenses, it's bringing us back into that bail system we used to have that we were trying to get out of," Wood said. "One-size-fits-all measures do not work in criminal justice."

Steve Janoski covers law enforcement for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news about those who safeguard your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ mayors urge jailing those arrested on gun charges before trial