ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul announced millions of dollars in funding for new crime-fighting technology and anti-violence community groups in Rochester during her visit to the city on Monday. She’s also assigning 25 New York State troopers to the Rochester Police Department to help investigate crimes.

However, the question remains: is it enough?

News10NBC has been covering the conversation in our community about criminal justice reforms. Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke brought the governor into that conversation.

Crime and shootings are actually down year-to-year but it doesn’t always feel like that because of a rough summer with a lot of high profile violent crimes. That includes a mass shooting at Maplewood Park that killed two women and injured five others. It also includes the murder of a mother, father and their two children in Irondequoit and the death of a 92-year-old man hit by a stolen car allegedly driven by a teen on parole.

The conversation in the Rochester community has been growing about whether more needs to be done legislatively to try and combat crime and keep repeat offenders behind bars for longer.

None of that was even mentioned at the governor’s public event but Jennifer Lewke was able to ask her about it after, whether she was open to any further changes around bail reform or raise the age.

News10NBC’s Jennifer Lewke asked Gov. Hochul to “address the elephant in the room” about criminal justice reform concerns. Hear the governor’s responses and the full interaction in the video player below:

Gov. Kathy Hochul: “There’s more tools for the judges, more factors for them to consider that we’re not there before. We also added 40 new crimes, including hate crimes to be bail eligible that had not been bail eligible before so, yes education is also important, there’s physical training going on, DAs have their state wide associations but it’s very obvious to me that some are willing to accept the changes, apply them properly, happy they’re doing that. Others are not.”

Jennifer Lewke: “Is there anything the state can do, I mean there have been a lot of changes in those last four years so, I think maybe what’s getting lost in translation is some judges or DAs offices don’t know where the distinction is and don’t want to do the wrong thing. So, is there any sort of mechanism at a state level that can help explain what the options are a little better?”

Gov. Kathy Hochul: “Very good point, we called upon the office of court administrator that oversees the entire judicial system here on New York to conduct training. To my knowledge, the training is going on, Marcos can you confirm that? It’s ongoing.”

It’s unclear just how long those 20 troopers will be here, working the streets of Rochester, but it’s clear the governor and the chief want them to be a visible presence. You can see Hochul’s full news conference here:

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