Criminals at large: what threatens New York mass release of prisoners because of the pandemic

Many prisoners across America have been released due to the coronavirus pandemic. In New York, their number was more than 1600 people, some of which immediately took up the old. Police are predicting a surge in crime after quarantine is lifted. Details shared edition Air force.

Crime surge: forecast

A surge in state crime is expected after quarantine is lifted. The fact is that now there are far fewer potential victims on the streets. This was told by the leadership of the New York police, numbering 55 thousand people.

Its boss, Dermot Shea, told the Wall Street Journal the other day that crime rates will rise because there are more criminals in the city who are being released from custody by thousands across America.

Who is released

Prisoners are released to protect against coronavirus infection. During the coronavirus pandemic in New York, more than 1600 prisoners were released. Some of them immediately took up the old. By the end of April, about 50 of them were arrested again.

Among those temporarily released was Michael Avenatti, a former lawyer for the porn actress Stormy Daniels. He claims that US President Donald Trump had an affair with her and that before the 2016 elections he paid her $ 130 thousand for silence. Trump denies this.

A few months ago, Daniels was convicted of trying to extort $ 20 million from Nike and was awaiting trial in prison on other charges, this time in Los Angeles. Now he was released under house arrest due to a pandemic.

Due to the pandemic, the infamous Paul Manafort, convicted of various crimes, was temporarily sent home. They mainly relate to his joint activities with the ex-president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.

Mafia is free

Some veterans of the New York mafia have also been released. Among them - the capo of the Bonnano clan, 85-year-old Vinnie Asaro. He was released in mid-April. The mafiosi was involved in the legendary robbery at the Kennedy Airport of Lufthansa, featured in the movie Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese.

The robbery occurred in 1978, but Asaro was tried for him in 2015, and acquitted. The trial was chaired by the Brooklyn federal judge Allin Ross, who listened in the past to the case of Odessa thug George Stoyanov, now deceased. She has now signed a warrant for the release of Asaro, who was serving an eight-year sentence for setting fire to a car that cut him on the highway.

Also in April, a member of the Lucchese clan, 59-year-old Eugene Castelli, who was convicted of underground gambling, was released on bail. He was imprisoned in federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. His lawyer, Aleksey Tarasov, petitioned for the release of Yaroshenko in connection with the pandemic, but he was refused.

Back in late March, the publication New York Post wrote that the coronavirus inflicted such a severe blow on the mafia as it had not seen from such enemies as former Justice Minister Robert Kennedy and former Manhattan federal prosecutor Rudi Giuliani.

Among the mafia’s crafts, extortion and sports tote occupy the main place. Thousands of restaurants and construction companies have closed due to the pandemic, so there’s now no one to run into. Sports competitions also stopped. Attempts to bet on “African cricket” and Australian football were not very successful.

It was assumed that the mafia would switch to drug trafficking, but the usual points of sale - restaurants, bars and strip clubs - also closed. The mafia traditionally made a profit from garbage disposal, but closed companies no longer produce it.

"The ranks of the police thinned"

If the number of criminals in New York increased, then the police ranks thinned.

On May 7, 1624 patrol officers did not go to work due to illness.

The number of criminals increased not only because of the release of prisoners against the backdrop of a pandemic, but also as a result of the law on the abolition of money bail that came into force. Due to this, starting in January, many criminals are released before trial.

On the subject: The safety of New Yorkers: how successfully the city fights crime

Dermot Shea opposes the law, which he says caused a spike in crime in the city even before the pandemic. “I am worried about this storm on the horizon,” he said.

The number of arrests decreased

In mid-March, a state of emergency was declared in New York. Since then, the number of serious crimes has declined by more than a quarter. The exception was burglary in closed stores and other commercial facilities, theft of cars and motorcycles.

The number of arrests was reduced by more than half, as the police were ordered not to exchange for such trifles as crossing streets in the wrong places, drinking alcohol publicly or stowaways on the subway. The new order will be tested for strength by the “theory of broken windows”, according to which connivance to petty offenses inevitably entails the multiplication of major ones.

“The bars are closed, and in New York, according to my information, there are speakeasy (from English Speakeasy - illegal drinking establishments - Ed.), Underground drinking establishments, fortunately there is an experience: there are secret after hours clubs in the city for a long time, which serve alcohol after four in the morning, when his official vacation ends, ”the author writes.

Cases of domestic violence increased

During quarantine throughout America, complaints of domestic violence increased. It is predicted that an accelerating economic downturn will only exacerbate this problem.

However, there are optimists who believe that crime is not expected against the backdrop of an economic downturn. The great depression of the 1930s, with which the current recession is increasingly being compared, was not accompanied by an increase in crime in the United States, they argue. American Prospect Magazine Published Article Candace McCoy, entitled: "Why Doesn't the Pandemic Increase Violent Crimes Even If It Causes Depression." The author's main source is her 92-year-old mother, Beverly, who survived the Great Depression as a child. This woman does not recall riots or rampant crime. “When people are starving,” Beverly says, “they don't beat each other. They help each other. As a child, we played every night on the street and no one ever locked houses. In any case, what was it to steal? "

McCoy also cites studies that have not found a correlation between unemployment and crime rates. The exception is shoplifting.

According to the author, in American history there have been no cases in which people desperate stormed food shops or burst into the homes of the wealthy. Riots, she writes, occur during periods of growing social and economic expectations. Outrages such as shoplifting and window dressing happen immediately after unexpected disasters like blackouts or hurricanes and are not the result of months of sliding into the economic abyss.

McCoy predicts that the recession will only increase the number of complaints of domestic violence, as well as fraud, which has already become more frequent with the onset of the pandemic.

Fighting crime

To survive, criminals in the US use a variety of methods. For example, they sell non-existent face masks in the midst of a pandemic and even attempt on emergency social assistance from the authorities to the population.

The US Department of Homeland Security predicts that swindlers will be even more proactive in the foreseeable future. To prevent this, an operation is codenamed Stolen Promises. Within its framework, as of May 12, 29 searches and 531 seizures of prohibited kits for analysis on COVID-19 and medicines, counterfeit masks and other goods were carried out. Arrested 14 suspects.

The department also mentions the case of a British citizen, 59-year-old Frank Richard Ludlow, accused in Los Angeles of distributing counterfeit drugs. He was detained on March 23 in the United Kingdom on unrelated charges.

Last week, it was reported that the Nigerian criminal group that filed unemployment benefits in the US using the stolen personal data of Americans. It is noted that in this way the group "earned" hundreds of millions of dollars.

Maurice Fein, the owner of a trucking company, was arrested last weekend in Georgia. He received more than one and a half million dollars from the federal Small Business Administration for the salaries of his 107 employees and other manufacturing expenses, but he spent most of his money for other purposes. In particular, he spent 85 thousand dollars on jewelry, the purchase of Rolls-Royce in 2019 and the payment of alimony in the amount of 40 thousand dollars.

“Washington is now spending trillions of dollars on helping citizens and saving the economy, and many dodgers are in a hurry to settle in with buckets under this golden rain,” the author summed up.