“The important thing here is trends, not the actual data. We still have a week left in the year but we’re [on] target for the lowest number of homicides since records have been kept in Jersey City. It’s quite a significant accomplishment,” said Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop when announcing the end-of-year crime statistics for his city. The numbers for other crimes, including robbery, aggravated assault and burglaries were all up slightly.
The mayor and Jersey City’s Director of Public Safety James Shea said there is a need to review the effects of bail reform. “Lower-level criminals” are “being emboldened and getting more emboldened as they discover the effects of bail reform, that they are not kept in for things they used to be kept in for and we’ve seen them become more emboldened and more willing to escalate their criminal behavior because there’s less immediate repercussions,” Shea said.
Fulop said, “There needs to be some repercussions and some penalties associated with crimes regardless of the degree of it. There has to be something that’s associated with it.”
