The ‘less is more’ poison fruit of ‘criminal justice reform’

Opinion

editorial

By Post Editorial Board

May 27, 2023 | 2:39pm

Albany didn’t stop “reforming” criminal justice after the disasters of 2019. And the “Less is More” law, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2021, is proving equally disastrous.

The law made it easier for crooks who violate their parole to stay out of prison. Cue added blood in the streets.

Less is More left Charles Rowe, on lifetime parole after nearly 35 years’ hard time for the brutal rape and murder of a child, free to allegedly commit a new crime.

Here’s a recap:

• Mere months after being paroled for his monstrous crime, Rowe allegedly stole a U-Haul van. 

• A soft-on-crime judge freed him on supervision pending final hearing on whether he violated parole.

• Rowe skipped two subsequent hearings and used his newfound freedom to allegedly rape one woman and assault another at the same U-Haul facility as the van theft.  

Prior to Less is More, he could’ve been detained for as long as three months pre-hearing after the van theft, meaning he would not have been able to rape and brutalize yet again. 

But the law nixed the presumption of detention pending parole revocation — even in cases like Rowe’s, where the parolee is an obvious danger. 

And the Less is More backers don’t just own Rowe’s new crimes, but also the vicious subway assault on Elisabeth Gomes by deranged vagrant Waheed Foster, a parolee released on his own recognizance thanks to the law despite two arrests on the same day last August. 

And the suckerpunch attack by Bui Van Phu (like Rowe a lifetime parolee for sex crimes) that left Jesus Cortes in a coma. (Phu, incredibly, was then let out with no bail after the attack on Cortes, but bad press got Hochul to order his re-arrest.)

This follows the grim results of earlier criminal justice “reforms.”

Raise the Age, which lets under-18 offenders off scot-free, has seen the number of teen shooters and victims triple since it was signed. 

And our no-bail law, despite feeble tweaks from Hochul, has seen felony crimes in Gotham hit a 15-year record, with a 20.4% rise in 2022 over 2021. 

New, burdensome discovery rules, which add massive paperwork requirements to any potential criminal prosecution, have driven up case-dismissal rates to as high as 69% in New York City — more than two-thirds of criminals cases are getting tossed in Gotham alone. 

And our crook-coddling lawmakers are not done yet; they’re on the hunt for more ways to do damage.

One big upcoming target is parole reform, i.e. making it easier for criminals to get out of prison. Another, the “Clean Slate” bill, aims to seal most convictions (as many as 2.3 million, including violent felonies) from the eyes of employers and landlords and eventually expunge them.

“Reformers” left Charles Rowe and countless others free to prey on the law-abiding. 

How much more blood must flow before they see the light — or finally get voted out?