Prior to the beginning of this week’s Yates County Legislature meeting, local lawmakers had an hour-long discussion with State Senator Tom O’Mara and Assemblyman Phil Palmesano on a number of topics impacting the county, including the state’s criminal justice reform. Senator O’Mara said that since Albany has been under the Democrats’ one-party rule, public safety “has suffered.”
“In 2019, one of the first orders of business of the complete one-party control of Albany was the passage of the No Bail, and there have been other detrimental things done to our criminal justice system,” said Senator O’Mara. “The HALT Act was done a little more recently than that, which has impacted crime within our prisons and the safety of those working conditions. We have, from our conference, many items of legislation proposed to claw back at these reforms.”
O’Mara also discussed what he and his fellow Republicans would like to see done in Albany.
“To put a ‘Dangerousness Standard’ into consideration for the judge setting bail, we’re the only state in the country that doesn’t allow that. We have legislation to do that. We have legislation on Raise the Age because, since its passage, at the time it was passed, it was really called the Gang Recruitment Act. It has really thrust a lot of the criminal activity under those 16 and 17-year-olds, particularly when it involves gang activity. Those are the ones who are carrying the guns. Those are the ones that are carrying the drugs because there are no consequences to them.”
O’Mara added that he believes our society, and the state as a whole, are suffering from the consequences of no consequences and said we’re still a long way from getting back to common sense on these issues.
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