AY FINAL PORTFOLIO & REFLECTION

UNIT 2:

New York’s Oozing Problems and How We Can Solve It.

I have been living in Brooklyn all my life but sometimes I would go to the city with my parents. During the times I went to Manhattan when I was younger I would see the things around me. It was amazing. The scenery of gigantic skyscrapers, the streets were relatively clean, there were different people of all kinds and there weren’t that many homeless people. Compared to Brooklyn and specifically, the area where I live is pretty quiet, lacks crime, and is small. But as the year goes by to the new year New York has been degrading there seems to be more crime. There are more homeless people. Everything is pricey. There are garbage political leaders and they make horrible laws.  There is too much trash. There is so much tax that it is taking the majority of our money.  Rent is super high to the point where during the 2021 election there was a political party called “The Rent Is Too Damn High”. Even my own neighborhood has gotten worse with crimes. the only crimes that I saw before we car crashes and occasional robbings, but now it has turned into robberies every other week, and even hate crimes have been increasing lately. and lastly, just a few days ago someone was stabbed to death not even 4 blocks away from my home. What is going on!

New York is truly amazing but these problems are truly destroying New York to the point where people are leaving in masses. Over 300,000 people have left New York since the last census. We as New Yorkers and others must solve this problem so that we can make New York good again. If we do not try and keep letting it get worse then it will be worse for our future generation and they do the same thing that we did until New York turn into a dump.

The political leader in our state should always try their best to do everything for the people of New York and always be truthful. But what happens when they don’t. “the Cuomo administration had internal data showing that the deaths of 13,147 nursing home residents were reported as of Feb. 3, 2021. But it publicly reported that only 9,076 deaths were tied to nursing homes during that time period, failing to report 30 percent of the deaths”(Ferré-Sadurní). During the beginning of the pandemic, former governor Andrew Cuomo was praised for his control of the COVID-19 outbreak, meanwhile, he was hiding data from the public on how many people died. If Cuomo hid data for this then what other things did he hide from the public? A political leader that is corrupt is another reason why this state is becoming worse. They put bad policies and rules that either make the problem worse or don’t change. Why was Cuomo even governor? The answer is the people themselves. there are many problems that led to bad politicians being elected. A few examples are Not looking at their views but only voting for whatever side they were on, not being a voter,  the main culprit is not voting at all. Voter turnout is how many of the registered voters voted in that election. During the most recent election (2021 Election) The voter turnout was around 21% which is the lowest ever in history (Ngo). We need to actually do our research to find out which candidates we like and go vote.

New York’s problems have drastic effects on us, one of the most recent problems as of March of 2022 is shoplifting and stealing. Abdul Alhirsh is an owner of a smoothie store and was robbed at gunpoint and lost $500 after that he was shortly robbed again ” Earlier this month, he ran out of the store to stop someone who had stolen a bottle of coconut water. The person’s accomplice shoved him to the sidewalk…and no one was around to help. Mr. Alhirsh stood up in a daze, hands bleeding, and walked back into the store.”(Hong) Mr. Alhirsh got fed up and tired of people robbing him of his money so he took matters into his own hands but when the thieve’s friend attacks Alhirsh, only then did Alhirsh realized that he should not have to risk himself for his item. It is an unfortunate thing. The police can not do anything to stop this because they have to deal with other crime and usually see it as less prioritizing.  These people should not have to risk their lives for trying to get their own stuff back even though it is justifiable. Some of them are dangerous and could hurt you. Every month the NYPD reveals the citywide crime statistics for the month and for February 2022. “grand larceny increased by 79.2% (3,762 v. 2.099), and grand larceny auto increased by 104.7% (1,083 v. 529).”(NYPD) Grand larceny is robbery above $1000. If grand larceny has a 79% increase imagine pettier crimes like under $1000 thief. What’s the point in staying in New York if you keep getting robbed that leads to you making less money then after that having to pay the rent that is too high overall causing you to lose your profits. If I were them and I had the money I would relocate somewhere.

The new law is supposed to make things better but sometimes it does not. A man was arrested for robbing a bank in  December 2019. But for some reason, he was released with free bail, Which led to this person robbing more banks. only when the Fed had to join to arrest him because of the fact that he was robbing FDIC-insured banks only then was he actually held(Cohn). Why was this man releaded with free bail? The reason why he was released with free bail is because of the Bail Reform. The Bail Reform gives free bail to people that do certain crimes, for example, some crimes that are  2nd to 3rd-degree Robbery and Burglary as a hate crime, selling drugs to a child, 3rd-degree assault and also a hate crime, Aggravated assault on a child under 11 years old, 2nd-degree manslaughter, aggravated vehicular manslaughter, Grand Larceny, Public lewdness, Assisting in female genital mutilation, Possessing a sexual performance by a child, and another estimate of 130 crimes are made free with bail(CBS). Do these crimes seem like first-time offenders and sorry people would do? The crimes that I have listed are all horrible and whoever commits these heinous crimes should be in prison for a long time. I understand that the bail reform is for the poor that need can’t pay for bail but when there are people that are exploiting it there must be something done. One more example of a person who had exploited this bail reform is Tiffany Harris a woman who went around between December 2019 and January 2020 slapping and cursing 3 Jewish women. She was arrested but guess what happened. You guess right she was freed and two days later slapped another Jewish woman holding her child she was again also got free bail again. How is that fair for someone to assault another person and get no penalty at all? There should be restrictions on violent crime in this bill. This case resonated with me because my family and I are Jews ourselves and when this happen there was a mass amount of hate crimes towards Jews in December 2019 one of the notable ones being the Monsey Hanukkah stabbing where 5 Jews were stabbed and one of them died. I was extremely upset at New York and the NY Government when Tiffany Harris was able to walk out free. It felt like they betrayed me and the Jewish people. Jews are the main target for hate crimes in New York but as of recently both Jews and Asians have been the main targets for hate crimes. If we truly want the Bail Reform to work we must need solutions for it. Some solutions could be making sure that first to second-time offenders are the ones that are able to be eligible for bail reform, taking violent crimes out of eligible crimes, and people that get rearrested can not get be eligible for the bail reform.

I want to live in a New York where people are not in fear of something happening to them. You see some of the problems that affect us every day. We must find a way to fix these problems. Some solution to these problems is voting and researching the candidates and voting for the one you agree with. Try to make others vote by helping them learn how to vote. Pick up trash or bring others to help clean the streets. We should fix the bail reform bill and try to make sure that the good people that make mistakes for low-level crimes do get some Justice meanwhile those that keep on doing the crime should not be able to get free bail and should have a tighter sentence. Fix the rent price to more affordable prices. Lower our taxes, and help fix the homelessness problem by giving them shelter and protecting them so they don’t get robbed or attacked in those shelters. There are so much more solutions to fix New York but we have to think of them altogether. So let’s fix New York NOW!