It’s a revolving door of blame.
The criminal justice reforms signed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo are to blame for the Big Apple’s spiraling recidivism problem, Mayor Eric Adams charged Wednesday — leveling his sharpest attack yet against his formidable campaign rival.
“You can’t come back later and try to reinvent your life when you were in office already,” Adams said on GMGT Live’s “The Reset Talk Show.”
“The recidivism we’re seeing in our city is because the laws that were passed by him.”
The mayor didn’t specify which laws, but officials such as NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch have argued bail reform and tweaks to discovery evidence rules — both of which Cuomo signed in 2019 — let throngs of repeat offenders loose to terrorize the city’s streets.
The city saw a whopping near-150% jump in felony assault busts for repeat offenders during the six years since, police have said.
The Cuomo, during a fiery sit-down with The Post’s editorial board Monday, repeatedly blamed the rising influence of far-left Democratic Socialists of America for his decision to sign the laws.
He also argued that the city’s problem with recidivism is largely caused by mentally ill people being found unfit to stand trial and released onto the streets without treatment.
“There is a sentiment that involuntary institutionalization violates civil rights and civil liberties,” he said. “I believe that there is, without due process, it does.
“But if a person is mentally ill, you do them no favor leaving them on the street. We’re just returning them to the street. This is liberalism gone amuck. Many of the recidivists are mentally ill.”
Cuomo, as governor, led a push to “transform” mental health in New York that got rid of hundreds of psychiatric hospital beds in the city.
He contended during Monday’s interview that existing laws can help fix the revolving door of crime, but they simply aren’t being used.
Adams until now has offered mostly muted criticism of Cuomo, who entered the race March 1 as the immediate frontrunner in the June Democratic primary as he spent months watching Hizzoner’s fortunes fall amid a still-lingering federal corruption case.
The mayor also tried to pin blame for homelessness problems in the city on Cuomo shutting down unspecified programs, and hit the former governor on COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
Cuomo’s reps argued the former governor had replaced a canceled rental subsidy program for the homeless with others that received more funding.
His team also again denied any link between deaths in nursing homes and his administration’s controversial directive forcing the facilities to take in COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals.
Cuomo’s spokesman Rich Azzopardi, when asked for comment on Adams’ attack, responded simply about the incumbent mayor: “The people of New York City will judge performance.”
Read the full article here