New York needs a rethink on “minor” offenses

The woman and the girl who, days apart, were beaten by a maniac at Grand Central Terminal. The women who were randomly beaten on the streets of Manhattan. The ex-girlfriend of Hollywood star Jonathan Majorswho was knocked into the back of a car by the actor.

They are all victims of third-degree assault, a crime that is becoming increasingly common in New York. Such attacks are At this point in 2024, this is 7.2% higher than last year12.5% ​​higher than two years ago – and even 2.3% higher than a decade and a half ago.

It is a serious, violent crime. A person who is smothered will live with trauma for months, if not years, if not their entire life. But under New York law, in most cases, judges cannot grant bail to those accused of committing this low-level crime — unless there are outstanding warrants or other complicating factors. And since it is a misdemeanor, the maximum penalty is 364 days in jail.

When crime statisticians add up the “seven major” crimes or “index” crimes, they are looking at murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, grand theft and grand auto theft. But for many people, breaking into a store when no one is there or taking an empty car isn’t nearly as frightening as the prospect of being punched in the face.

It’s not just the crime trend lines over time that are worrying. Last year, the number of complaints about crimes in the five boroughs totaled 44,141, or 121 per day. That is more than three times the number of burglaries and more than double the number of robberies. Despite so many complaints, the number of convictions for this crime citywide hovers around 1,100 annually.

Felony assaults are indeed more serious – and they too have been on the rise lately. The 2023 city totals (27,876) were 6.4% higher than 2022, 20.9% higher than 2021 and 36.8% higher than 2018.

What distinguishes misdemeanor assaults from their crime cousins according to the law? Often judgment calls. As a general rule, this is only the case if an act involves ‘a substantial risk of death’, or ‘death or serious and long-lasting disfigurement, long-term impairment of health or long-term loss or impairment of the function of any bodily organ causes’ – or when a weapon is involved – it can be charged as a crime.

We don’t understand how police and prosecutors can know in the days immediately after a crime whether an attack caused long-term damage, but we never got a law degree.

There are exceptions to these rules; a crime of “simple assault” becomes a low-level crime when someone commits this against a police officer, an emergency medical technician, a transit worker, an elderly person or a child under the age of 7 (or under the age of 11 if the injury is intentional and the injury is serious). So it wasn’t even a crime when the crazy man hit the 9 year old girl in Grand Central.

We would be remiss not to mention domestic violence, which accounts for a large proportion of both crimes and misdemeanors. This is a heinous crime, one that is all too common across the country and around the world, and requires effective prevention strategies and severe punishment for those convicted.

These crimes are the stuff nightmares are made of. Even though they are crimes, they should never be reduced to an asterisk or treated as an afterthought.