In his appalling and misleading opinion piece in the May 5 issue of The Port Washington Times, Mr. George J. Marlin, is indeed “Merlin” as as he magically pulls statistics out of the hat and manipulates data to support the old crime and immigration tropes that perpetuate fear and failed policies.
The gist of Mr. Marlin’s piece is that there was a 22% increase in “major crimes” in New York City last year and he ties this increase to the 2019 “lenient penal reforms … that have emboldened criminals.” Sparse on details, one can only surmise that Mr. Marlin is referring to the cash bail bond reform legislation that was passed in 2019. Putting aside the fact that the bail reform was rolled back in January 2020, the elimination of cash bail, as it was passed, applied only to some misdemeanors and some non-violent felonies.
The reason for the reform is obvious: it attempted to level the playing field between those who have and those who have not. The poor (primarily people of color) are often held in jail for days, weeks, or months before a trial because they cannot afford to pay bail, whereas those better off (usually white) simply pay and walk out within hours of arrest and go on with their lives.
Mr. Marlin omits the fact that the bail reform legislation has no connection to “serious” crime (which one can surmise, based on Mr. Marlin’s own examples, is violent crime) as it relates only to non-violent and minor crimes. To the contrary, Mr. Marlin directly implies that the legislation is a cause of the 22% increase he cites. What Mr. Marlin also fails to mention is that crime rates rose at similar rates nationwide over the same period. Other cities in the U.S. saw increases in crime even though they did not pass any “lenient penal reforms.”
As anyone who has taken statistics can tell you – correlation does not mean causation – unless you are trying to prove a falsehood, that is. The greatest slight of hand comes at the end, when Mr. Marlin decides to bring asylum seekers and immigrants into his wobbly house of cards. And here you have it, immigrants, people of color, and those who try to advocate for fair treatment on their behalf are the reasons for why crime is on the rise.
Oh, Mr. Marlin, you are not fooling anyone!
Jack Hoppenstand
Port Washington