Left-wing New York DA Alvin Bragg downgraded 60 percent of felony cases in 2023: report

In 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg downgraded 938 of the most serious felony charges and brought 834 our them down to misdemeanors.

According to the Daily Mail, the percentage of felonies that the district attorney has downgraded sits at 60 percent, higher than his predecessor at 53 percent. He has also decided to not prosecute 14 percent of all arrests since he took office in January 2022.

New York Police Department data reveals that while there were 12 fewer murders in 2023 than in 2022, the overall violent crime rate went up by 2.4 percent in the city. Overall, there were 10,547 violent crimes committed in 2023, and 10,298 in 2022.

In response to the report, a spokesman for the DA's office said, "Manhattan’s felony conviction rate is higher than the other four boroughs, and our felony decline to prosecute rate is lower than the citywide average." He claimed, "We are getting results from our comprehensive crime strategy that includes more gun prosecutions, focusing on drivers of violent crime and making investments that prevent crime and build strong neighborhoods."

The report comes as DA Bragg has been criticized after he released a group of illegal immigrants without bail after they attacked two NYPD officers in Times Square earlier this month.

"Attacks on police officers are becoming an epidemic, and the reason is a revolving door we're seeing in cases like this one," said the Police Benevolent Association (PBA) president, Patrick Hendry." It is impossible for police officers to deal effectively with crime and disorder if the justice system can't or won't protect us while we do that work."

Last summer, the PBA slammed Bragg as being "on the side of criminals" after he decided to indict Officer Salvatore Provenzano for allegedly punching a man who was reportedly harassing customers in an Apple store that he had been banned from.

Hendry said at the time, "DA Bragg is not on your side, he is on the side of the repeat offenders." He added, "You cannot try to remove someone from your store, you cannot try to remove a shoplifter from your store, a disorderly from your store, because you will be arrested. And when you call 911 for that police officer to protect you, that police officer will be arrested and be indicted."