Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg‘s chief prosecutor, Meg Reiss, bragged about letting violent criminals and felons off the hook – including a murderer – using her restorative justice approach to help them avoid incarceration, Fox News Digital found.
“We know incarceration doesn’t really solve any problems,” Reiss said during a Peace Institute event in May 2021. Fox News Digital has previously reported that Reiss said criminals are not “bad dudes” while simultaneously blasting juries for believing police officers facing misconduct allegations deserve the “benefit of the doubt.”
Reiss went on to describe how the Manhattan district attorney helped a murderer get out of jail time for a homicide victim who had very few relatives.
She said a man who was facing a manslaughter charge for killing another person during a violent altercation was able to leave without any prison time, calling it “extraordinary.”
“It was an incident between two people that knew each other very well. And it was sort of… a fight that ended up with one person dying and the person who was charged had substance misuse issues and other things. And going through the outcome in the case, it just seemed appropriate for restorative practice rather than a carceral sentence.”
Reiss said that the victim only had one family as a relative, whom he did not know. In fact, the daughter “never met her father,” Reiss said. The Manhattan DA worked with this daughter of the estranged father to engage in a restorative practice circle with the perpetrator, instead of incarceration.
“Restorative practices” is the antidote, so to speak, to the “systemic racism” that critical race theorists claim plagues America, Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation said.
Many violent criminals, Reiss said, are given referrals away from incarceration.
“So we’re really trying to shift to restorative outcomes being the really default to the work that we do,” Reiss said. “So there’s some things where that already happens… for people that are charged with causing harm, actual violence… where they actually cause actual harm to another person.”
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To divert violent criminals facing felonies in adult courts, generally around the ages of 18-26, Reiss said she “screens” the cases with an organization called Common Justice.
“That’s a default in our office,” she said.
“In New York City, we operate the… alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program… that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts,” the organization said.
Common Justice aids its partners to “develo[p] and advanc[e] solutions to violence that… foster racial equity without relying on incarceration.”
Reiss also blasted the idea that criminals in New York illegally possessing firearms should amount to jail time.
She said the office has a “gun diversion” program for criminals illegally possessing firearms.
“We do gun diversion that has a restorative component to it as well. In New York State, there’s a mandatory minimum for just straight gun possession, no acts of violence, straight gun possession of three and a half years.”
Criminal possession of a firearm in New York is a Class E felony, and carries up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office did not answer whether it is their general practice to divert Class E felons and violent criminals from the criminal justice system.
Bragg’s office has been in the spotlight as it leads the hush money probe and indictment of former President Donald Trump on 34 Class E felony charges, which could amount to over 100 years in prison if he is convicted of all charges.
Trump’s indictment marked the first time a U.S. president, former or current, had ever been charged with a crime. Trump has accused Bragg, a Democrat, of political bias against him.
Reiss previously founded the Institute for Innovation on Prosecution, to bring about racial equity reforms rooted in critical race theory ideology.
The institute believes in an ideologically driven approach to prosecution that takes into account historical factors. For example, the Institute argued in a report, signed with Reiss’ name, that prosecutors must focus on “acknowledging our nation’s shameful history of slavery and racism which continues to cloud the criminal justice system.”
As part of this racial equity mission, the IIP suggested prosecutors should intentionally undermine the charges police officers bring forward.
“Your charging authority gives you the power to check and counterbalance some police actions,” IIP said. “Recognize the systems that are upstream from your office that may perpetuate racial disparities in the justice system, and take steps in your own office to resist those trends.”
“Meg Reiss is a former homicide prosecutor who has worked collaboratively with all stakeholders throughout the criminal justice system and has been in public service for decades. She is a widely respected attorney who ensures every case is evaluated based on the facts and the law,” a spokesperson for the DA’s office told Fox News Digital.
