After digging around, I learned there is no good reason. Sirens harm EMT workers, harm public health, increase risk of ambulance accidents, and only marginally improve response time, which, for most 911 calls is not needed. Also, other countries have quieter sirens.

Here's an article about the class action related to this, reported by @kevinduggan.bsky.social @nyc.streetsblog.org nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/05/12/c...

Here is the text of the law, 2019 Local Law No. 154: "A person operating a bicycle while crossing an intersection shall follow pedestrian control signals except where otherwise indicated by traffic control devices, and provided that such person
shall yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk."

Not sentencing people to life or decades for multiple convictions. Forever, as far as I can tell, sentences have increased for repeated criminal acts. But only marginal increases. What eugenics did was turn those sentences into reproduction ending ones. And that’s what we still have.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Adding this here for historical context of these laws. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Thanks for reporting on this. Adding this here for more historical context. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

@acluvermont.bsky.social @aclu-norcal.bsky.social @acluofcolorado.bsky.social @alabamareflector.com @nacdl.org @famm.org

Thank you for supporting this. Important to remove eugenic programs from New York law. Pasting eugenic history of three strikes law below for reference.

www.sentencingproject.org/reports/the-...

There was significant Catholic resistance to sterilization, which led some states (Colorado being one) to choose long sentences over sterilization

If this was news to you, please spread the word. And if you are a practitioner who wants to connect and learn more about this history, please reach out.

#eugenics #criminallaw #sentencing #crimsky #legalhistory #habitualoffender #threestrikes

My hope now is to correct the record on this, so that judges, DAs, legislators, public defenders, and people serving these sentences have a deeper sense of the history. Many of the laws passed in the early 1900s for eugenic reasons are the same ones on the books today. 49 states have these laws.

And I talked about this on the Public Defenseless podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/39My...

I also worked with The Sentencing Project to publish a report on this topic. www.sentencingproject.org/reports/the-...

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

So, the takeaway is that habitual offender laws did not emerge from the tough on crime era in the late 1900s, but instead from the eugenics movement in the early 1900s. The Howard Law Journal published my research on this last month.

On balance, eugenicists preferred sentencing to sterilization because it was a tool that faced less backlash. Habitual offender and three strikes laws passed in 42 states in the first half of the 1900. And when the Nazi party came to power in Germany, they quickly passed a three strikes law.

Based on this belief, eugenicists across the country advocated for three strikes laws and similar habitual offender laws to stop “habitual criminals” from reproducing. Eugenicists debated whether they should use sterilization or long sentences as the tool for eradicating “habitual criminals.”

What I found was that these laws were a product of the eugenics movement. Eugenicists believed that people who committed multiple crimes were likely “genetic criminals” such that they could not be cured, and that they would pass criminality to their offspring if allowed to reproduce.