Tabloid Fuels Collective Anxiety Attack Over Bail Ban

On July 25, six teenagers from Queens, New York, were given a chance to attend a professional sporting event, many of them for the first time in their lives: a baseball game between the San Diego Padres and their hometown Mets.

That night under the lights, they were chaperoned by social workers from New York City’s Criminal Justice Agency, a nonprofit overseen by the mayor’s office. The agency works with recently arrested people whom a judge has selected to be put under close supervision while their cases are pending—as an alternative to awaiting trial in jail. The teens were being rewarded for their cooperation.

Yet in last week in advance of a new state, the teens attending the Mets game were called out as exemplifying a new wave of “crook coddling,” or “goodies” for “baddies.”