ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to expand the number of offenses eligible for hate crimes in a bid to address a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in New York.
The proposal was part of a package of measures backed by Hochul in her State of the State address meant to address public safety in New York.
Crime has become a flashpoint for Republican and Democratic candidates in elections over the last several cycles and voters in the state have cited public safety as a top priority for officials to address.
Broadly, Hochul's office in a briefing book described the anti-crime proposals as "a multi-pronged agenda to improve public safety, continuing to support what works, and focusing on the criminal activities that have been resistant to interventions to date" in New York.
Hochul’s proposal to boost hate crimes prosecutions, for now, lacks specifics. She would also need the Democratic-led chambers of the state Legislature to sign off on any changes.
Hate crimes have increased in New York over the last four years, a rise that has coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase in crime overall.
Hochul cited statistics that showed the number of incidents has increased by 69 percent in New York City between 2018 and 2022. Outside of the city, hate crimes incidents have more than doubled during that time frame.
Many of the incidents are hate crimes directed at Jewish people: The number of antisemitic incidents in New York City increased by 95 percent between 2022 and October 2023, according to Hochul’s office.
Hochul, a Democrat, has touted efforts to address public safety, backing efforts to boost funding in the State Police’s budget as well as creating a task force to counteract and monitor hate crimes and hate speech online.
Meanwhile, as the state’s bumpy rollout of legalized cannabis has come under scrutiny, Hochul wants lawmakers to approve a measure that would allow state marijuana regulators and local governments to seal or padlock unlicensed businesses.
Stores that sell cannabis without a license have proliferated in New York, and Mayor Eric Adams has called the issue a top issue for him this year.
“These are necessary steps towards shutting down unlawful and unlicensed cannabis operations that jeopardize public safety and the integrity of the State’s legal cannabis market,” Hochul wrote in her briefing book.
Hochul’s push for law enforcement funding and anti-crime efforts have been backed by Democratic lawmakers as Republicans have seized on voters’ fears over public safety. The party’s 2022 nominee for governor, Lee Zeldin, ran on a platform of rolling back progressive-supported criminal justice law changes, such as limiting when cash bail is required for many criminal charges.
Still, murders and shootings in New York declined in 2023 after peaking during the start of the pandemic, according to national crime statistics released by the FBI.
And Hochul has also embraced some proposals backed by her fellow Democrats that tack to the left on criminal justice, such as sealing millions of felony and misdemeanor criminal records years after convictions. Hochul signed the measure, known as the Clean Slate Act, last year.
This year, Hochul wants to expand training for crisis intervention teams, which are meant to respond to people in mental health crises and reduce the role of law enforcement.
Hochul is also throwing her support behind a constitutional amendment that would end a limit on the number of elected lower court judges in New York as part of an effort to reduce a backlog of people awaiting trial while in jail.
And Hochul proposed to expand college programs to all state prisons, which are seen as being effective against recidivism.
