#Bill Bratton blames bail reform for NYC crime spike

New York City crime is surging after decades on the decline because of “disastrous” liberal criminal justice reforms, former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Sunday.

“They passed a series of criminal justice reform laws and bail reform that have proven disastrous,” Bratton told host John Catsimatidis on WABC Radio’s “The Cats Roundtable.”

Shootings have soared across the five boroughs by nearly 70 percent so far in 2021, according to recent NYPD figures. Murders have risen nearly 12 percent so far this year, too, but compared to 2019, that figure rockets to nearly 50 percent, according to NYPD.

Bratton, who served as top cop under both mayors Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio, called efforts “to fix a lot of stuff that do not need to be fixed” a “principle” cause of the spike in criminal activity, along with the “incredible” proliferation of illegal guns.

“We have a legislature in Albany and the city council of New York City — and I’m speaking specifically of New York but it’s echoed across the country — and prosecutors who provide their primary goal is to basically to … take care of the defendant, and not to focus on the victim,” Bratton said.

Bratton insisted police departments had reformed significantly before legislators and Gov. Cuomo passed legislation limiting the types of offenses for which judges could require bail.

His comments echo those of de Blasio and current Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, who have both spoken out against the controversial reforms.

“Crime … was, at all time lows before you started messing with it,” Bratton added. “Arrests were down, summons were down, citations were down, use of force was down dramatically.”

Bratton said he was “supportive” of reform, but that advocates “threw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“We are going to be in for a long, hot, violent summer — because I don’t think anything at the moment that is going to temper that,” the former commissioner warned.

“We have fewer cops to deal with it, we have such [little] political will to deal with it and we have, unfortunately, communities with a lot of young people with guns.”