The Legal Aid Society, The Bronx Defenders, New York County Defender Services, Brooklyn Defender Services and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem released an analysis of data obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA) that shows a sharp decline in the number of new criminal cases throughout the city in the first two months of 2020, as compared with the same period last year, reports the New York Post.

These numbers starkly contradict claims by the NYPD that crime has risen since the new bail law went into effect on January 1. Rather, the court figures suggest that crime has continued to plummet. This is in line with a decade-long trend in which crime has declined steadily each year since 2010.

The court case numbers are a more objective measure because each docket represents an instance in which a person has been actually accused of a crime and charged in court. Cases are scrutinized by prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges, and inflated or entirely bogus charges may not pass muster. In a similar way, homicide figures would be harder to inflate because an actual death is required.

“Since the NYPD controls how, when, and where they arrest people and what they charge an arrested person with, it is easy for them to generate and then use statistics to promote a self-interested agenda,” reads a joint statement from New York City Defender organizations. “The court case numbers are a more objective measure because each docket represents an instance in which a person has actually been accused of a crime and charged in court. Charged cases often face some degree of scrutiny from prosecutors and judges, and thus weed out entirely unfounded charges associated with initial arrests.”