Using her 2024 State of the State address this week as a springboard, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced new initiatives on crime and public safety, including crackdowns on retail theft and gun violence, and support for both domestic violence and hate crime prosecution.
“If government can’t keep New Yorkers safe, nothing else matters,” Hochul said. “In the past year, we’ve reduced gun violence and brought shootings down by more than a third statewide. Our success in bringing down gun violence proves that targeted strategies work — and changing trends is possible.”
According to figures from the governor’s office, in 2023 shootings in New York City fell roughly 38 percent compared to the peak experienced in 2021, as well as GIVE jurisdictions around the state by 35 percent.
Building on the belief in changing trends, the governor kicked off a joint operation of law enforcement agencies to crack down on retail theft and announced that state investments would go toward the successful prosecution of domestic violence offenders and to keeping guns away from criminals. Doubling down, she added that the Department of Health’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention would unveil a sweeping set of strategies to prevent gun violence.
For retail crime, which has risen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hochul proposed, among other things: legislation to create criminal penalties for online marketplaces and third-party sellers of stolen goods, a new task force, deployment of a state police team dedicated to organized retail theft rings, and creating a Commercial Security Tax Credit.
On the gun violence side, Hochul pledged technical assistance for community-based organizations and hospitals, a public awareness campaign, a new task force to support New York state health systems and more. Tackling domestic violence will also be a big part of this. According to the state, domestic violence represents approximately 20 percent of murders in New York, but many domestic violence offenders go without prosecution, leading to continued or escalating behavior. Roughly two in three prosecuted domestic violence related arrests were dismissed as recently as 2022 – and Hochul wants to change that.
In order to do so, she proposed dedicated funding for: district attorneys offices, risk assessment tools to focus on high-risk domestic violence perpetrators and victims, expansion of the Supervision Against Violent Engagement (SAVE) program and data collection capacity of local law enforcement and reviews conducted by the State’s Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, among other things.
At the same time, hate crimes were also on Hochul’s radar. With the numbers of such incidents rising nationwide in recent years, the governor proposed legislation to expand the list of offenses eligible for prosecution under the hate crime umbrella. If adopted, all forms of first-degree rape, gang assault, making graffiti, and arson, among others, would be treats as hate crimes. She backed this effort by noting that between 2018 and 2022, the number of hate crimes in New York City increased by 69 percent, while outside the city they increased by 109 percent. A new task force, new reporting hotline and extra grant funding have all been meant to counter this trend.