Crime in New Jersey has plummeted over the past two years. Violent offences like homicide and robbery are down more than thirty percent through September, compared to state data from 2016, and the numbers have advocates of bail reform cheering. 

“These numbers are staggering,” said Alexander Shalom, senior supervising attorney at the ACLU-NJ. 

Shalom said critics of the Criminal Justice Reform Act, which mostly did away with cash bail, warned there’d be a spike in crime. A month after it was implemented in January 2017, police union president Pat Colligan told NJ 101.5 that “some real bad guys are getting out on the street.”
 

Read the full story on WNYC News, a content partner of NJ Spotlight.