Last April, the New York State Legislature passed an ill-considered set of criminal justice reforms that were buried in the state budget bill. As those reforms have taken effect, it has become clear that they present a significant challenge to public safety.

The New York Police Department favors criminal justice reforms and bail reform, but within a framework that is fair both to the victims of crimes and to those accused of committing them. The time has come to rethink these reforms to achieve the desired goal of a fairer criminal justice system that doesn’t undermine, but supports, public safety.

New York is not a jurisdiction that overincarcerates. Arrests are down 46 percent since 2013. Eighty-seven percent of arrested persons are released without bail within 24 hours of arrest. The city has the lowest jail incarceration rate compared to the five largest cities in the country, half the rate of Los Angeles and one-third that of Houston. The Rikers Island jail population is 51 percent lower since 2013 and down 74 percent from its high in 1993.

New York is now the only state in the nation that requires judges to entirely disregard the threat to public safety posed by accused persons in determining whether to hold them pending trial or to impose conditions for their release. In addition, the new law constrains judges from holding repeat offenders with long records of both crime and absconding trial. It eliminates cash bail and the possibility of detention for a wide array of offenses, including weapons possession, trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs, many hate-crime assaults, the promotion of child prostitution, serial arson, and certain burglaries and robberies.