New York City in the last decade has amassed a remarkable record of reducing violent crime, diminishing the number of offenders on probation and shrinking those on parole.  The New York State Correctional System that held 71,000 inmates in 2000 has been reduced to 54,000 in 2014.  Rather than building prisons, the state has closed over 10 prisons.  The same has occurred in the jail system.  At its peak, Rikers Island was inundated with 23,000 awaiting trial.  That number in recent years has fallen below 13,000.

As the criminal justice system contracts in New York City, the number of elected officials arrested or convicted for corruption continues to explode. Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the State Assembly, a position that he has held for 21 years, at the age of 70 has been forced to step down from that position of power after the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted him for kickbacks and bribery.  Approximately $4 million of the ex-Speaker’s capital accumulation has been seized.

There is a troika comprised of the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly and the Majority Leader of the Senate who determine the manner in which the $141 billion State budget will be sliced.  Mr. Silver will not participate in this fiscal year deliberations as he will be pre-occupied with avoiding spending his sunset years in a federal prison.  The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara has a reputation of bringing air tight cases and thus Mr. Silver’s best option will more than likely be “to cop” a plea and seek a limited time in incarceration.

Mr. Silver will not be alone.  New York elected officials are doing an excellent job in keeping federal prisons at a high level of occupancy.  The former Majority Leader of the Senate, Malcolm Smith, was convicted in federal court for bribery.  The former Senator from South-east Queens engaged in a cockamamy scheme to bribe Republican Chairmen in the New York City boroughs to put his name on the Republican ballot for the mayoralty campaign of 2013.  Mr. Smith was convicted with Vincent Tabone of bribery. Another party to the harebrain scheme, Savino, made an agreement with the ‘feds’ to wear a wire and to gather evidence that led to the connection of Smith and Tabone.  Sentence will take place later in the year.

The arrest and conviction of elected officials apply to all races, all creeds and all ethnicities.  Nelson Castro, a Bronx Assemblyman, last year had to step down and began cooperating with the ‘feds’ to minimize his jail time in an attempt to catch other fish, perhaps bigger than himself.

What is abundantly clear is the asinine and naïve ways in which elected officials have compromised themselves.  Malcolm Smith, even if he had managed to obtain the Republican nomination for Mayor, had no chance of being elected Mayor.  One has to be a political quack to presume a turn coat Democrat running as a Republic could be elected Mayor or dog-catcher.

The ex-City Councilman, Larry Seabrook, who previously served in the State Assembly and as a State Senator was convicted of nine counts of fraud in Federal Court in 2012.  Seabrook was convicted of using public funds to establish non-profit entities that employed his relatives and girlfriend.  The prosecutors didn’t prove that Larry Seabrook had personally enriched himself like Sheldon Silver but that the member’s discretionary fund and non-profit entities were too closely connected to Seabrook’s family members.

Arrested but not yet convicted is Reuben Wills, also a City Councilman representing Queens for the fraudulent misuse of City Council’s discretionary funds.  Unlike his comrades-in-arms, Wills’ arrest was brought by the State’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. Mr. Wills has refused to resign his seat and his constituents await his fate that will be decided by the courts.  The fall of elected officials has also given rise to the rise of other elected officials.  Mr. Carl Heastie, an Assemblyman from the Bronx and the Democratic County Leader has been chosen by his colleagues to succeed the fallen Sheldon Silver.  Heastie has an excellent working relationship with the progressive Mayor of New York City, Bill De Blassio.  At present the Republicans hold a majority in the State Senate but with the possibility in coming elections that the Senate could revert to Democratic control.
 
The question is what should a progressive agenda on the state and the city level look like at this juncture in American politics?  One of the reasons why black and Latino elected officials fall prey to personal enrichment is that they are not part of a progressive coalition with a clear vision to improve the lives of their constituents.

De Blassio as the City’s mayor has stressed early childhood education in an attempt to provide poor children with a better opportunity to perform well in school.  In his last state of the City address, he outlined a plan to make more affordable housing available to the working class in the city.  And he has previously altered the tactics of the New York Police Department in drastically reducing stop and frisk and demanding the NYPD improve relationships with minority communities.

The new Speaker, Carl Heastie, and the not-so-new mayor, should pay careful attention to funding of the City University and the State University.  The City University in its quest for glory has become increasingly elitist particularly in its senior colleges and in its doctoral programs.  The progressive agenda must ensure that access to higher education at the state and city level is preserved.    On the under-graduate level, the Federal government offers Pell and the State offers TAP to low income students. For the state to be economically competitive, it should offer some kind of TAP to graduate students, especially those who fall under STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

When David Dinkins embarked on Safe City, Safe Streets, which led to an additional nine thousand police officers and there was supposed to be funds for Beacon Schools, the latter was never properly funded.  In the same vein that early childhood education is critical, after-school activities are just as critical to ensuring that children are engaged in wholesome activities.

The performance of the criminal justice system in New York remains astounding but there is the need to fund research to fully explain what is occurring from a grassroots perspective.  Much of the research on criminal justice is an outgrowth of macro-data analysis and not from data amassed from ethnographers.  The progressive agenda must be rooted in a scientific approach.  Through a robust progressive agenda, there will be less room for corrupt elected officials to maneuver.  With the economy growing at a steady pace, with a progressive Mayor occupying City Hall and the Speaker of the Assembly committed to progressive principles, there is much that can be accomplished to improve people’s lives in the city of 8.5 million.

Dr. Basil Wilson is Provost Emeritus of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Executive Director of the King Research Institute, Monroe College, Bronx, New York. He can be reached at: basilwilson@caribbean-events.com.