Democrats are opening the door to changes on New York's bail reform law as the legislative session begins this week. New York's bail law, which went into effect at the beginning of the year, did away with money bail and pretrial detention for a wide majority of low-level cases and nonviolent felonies. Law enforcement officials and Republicans have spent months raising red flags on the changes, but their criticism caught more fervor in the last week as courts across the state have released people who would have remain behind bars under the old rules. Republican state senator Patrick Gallivan of Elma, a former state trooper and Erie County sheriff, has set up an online petition for residents to sign, calling on state lawmakers to reverse the changes.
Mark Wozniak, WBFO's local All Things Considered host, has been at WBFO since mid-1978.
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