Thread by @RSGAT

The mayor used a series of examples to make the case that we need higher bonds for people charged with gun crimes. But argument by anecdote can be deceptive:

https://twitter.com/MayorBronin/status/1317616751761330177

The mayor recited (I think) six instances (maybe eight?) of people who were arrested on gun charges, released fairly quickly, and went on to be arrested for new serious charges soon after. If that were the whole universe of gun arrests, his would be a compelling argument.

But that is not all the gun arrests. In 2017, for example, Hartford had 400 serious gun crime convictions (murders + robberies + aggravated assaults), per data from the Office of Legislative Research:

Let's assume, then, that there are 400 gun crime arrests per year (it's actually more, since this table doesn't include convictions for simple possession or arrests that don't lead to convictions, but let's underestimate to be safe).

If there were ten times as many instances of quick reoffending as the eight that the mayor related, 80 altogether, we'd still be talking about 20% of all arrestees. But we don't know which 20% it will be, so we have to set high bonds for everyone.

That means that to prevent reoffense by that 20%, we have to detain the other 80% needlessly. What happens to our community then?

People lose their jobs, their housing, and sometimes custody of their kids. Ripples of instability move outward, from individual to family to community, creating exactly the kind of conditions that we know lead to more violent crime.

And the thing is, we actually know the number of arrestees classified as "high risk" who commit new offenses while awaiting trial. It's not 20%. It's under 10%.

This is why bail reform is widely popular: because widespread pre-trial detention doesn't make communities safer; it destabilizes them.

I give @MayorBronin credit for being, on the whole, honest about the challenges the city faces and the causes of violence, inasmuch as we know them.

And he's in a tough position: most of the causes of violence are outside our borders and control, and most of the solutions require more resources and broader reach than the city has. But let's not take a step backward by calling for more pre-trial detention.