Removing societal restraint is not mercy, it is neglect — and the painful scars of Bethany MaGee and the grave of Iryna Zarutska bear horrific witness to that truth.
Recently, two stories broke through the noise. Two women. Two cities. Two unprovoked attacks. And two predators who never should have been walking free.
Here’s the hard truth no one wants to say out loud: These attacks are not random. They’re the result of a system that shrugs off accountability, ties the hands of judges, and let’s predators roam free — all in the name of “compassion.”
Bethany MaGee, 26, stepped onto a Chicago train expecting an ordinary ride home. Instead, a man she had never met doused her with a flammable liquid and set her on fire. She now faces years of surgeries and a lifetime of trauma.
More than three months earlier, Iryna Zarutska, 23, boarded a light-rail car in Charlotte. Moments later she was stabbed by a man with a long history of criminality and mental health problems. Iryna had fled the war in Ukraine to rebuild her life in the United States.
On August 22, 2025, she died on a train in the country she believed would protect her.
Two women caught off guard. Two violent offenders the system refused to restrain. And one ideology that continues to call itself “justice.”
The Progressive Experiment That Endangers Everyone
Cashless bail was marketed as moral progress. A fairer justice system. A more compassionate approach to crime. The rhetoric sounded noble, and many people believed it.
But instead of repairing the justice system, lawmakers have only succeeded in tearing it apart. They treated consequences as oppression, accountability as cruelty, and restraint as discrimination.
Reality pushed back.
In a study conducted by the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice examining the effects of New York’s bail reform, researchers discovered what common sense has always known: Releasing high-risk violent offenders leads to more crime.
While advocates celebrated stable overall rearrest rates, they ignored the study’s critical finding that bail reform “tended to increase recidivism for people facing more serious charges and with recent criminal histories.” Among violent felony defendants, the expanded pretrial release population contributed to 345 additional crimes in New York City.
In McHenry County, Illinois, State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally documented a 30 percent increase in crime by defendants on pretrial release. What’s more, court appearance rates plummeted by 280 percent as defendants simply stopped showing up for trial.
This was predictable and preventable. This is what happens when ideological fantasy collides with the real world.
The Ideology Behind the Chaos
Cashless bail emerged from a worldview shaped by neo-Marxist categories — oppressor versus oppressed, structures versus individuals, sociology replacing morality. Under this belief system, more popularly known as “social justice,” crime becomes a symptom of poverty, not a choice rooted in human depravity; offenders are recast as victims; and accountability becomes discrimination.
Make no mistake: This is spiritual warfare.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
The judges who release violent predators are not the ultimate enemy. They are simply the tools of a darker agenda — one that inverts justice, calls evil good, and sacrifices the innocent on the altar of progressive ideology.
When evil is explained away, it is never restrained.
The Victims Are Everywhere
When a man with 72 arrests, is released back into the neighborhood, his next victim is not a politician with a security detail. His next victim is an innocent young woman like Bethany MaGee.
When a man with 14 arrests dating back decades and a documented history of mental illness and violence is released, he’s going to feel free to go on a train and stab a young woman like Iryna Zarutska to death because he doesn’t think he’ll ever have to suffer any real consequences for it.
And so the danger spreads — to the subways in New York, to the sidewalks in Seattle, to the highways in Colorado, and to homes in Los Angeles.
No society that abandons its most innocent or its most vulnerable will long survive.
The Moral Frame: Mercy Without Justice Is Cruelty
Scripture is direct.
“Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
“For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4).
Government exists to restrain evil, protect the innocent, and maintain order. When it refuses to do that, it betrays the very people God calls it to protect.
Removing restraint is not mercy — it is neglect. And the scars on the bodies of women like Bethany and the grave of a woman like Iryna bear witness to that neglect.
Two Legislative Responses — And What They Reveal
Some leaders are pushing back.
In Congress, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced the Keep Violent Criminals Off Our Streets Act, which would cut federal funding to any jurisdiction that maintains cashless bail policies or fails to detain violent offenders pretrial.
More significantly, North Carolina responded to Iryna’s murder by passing “Iryna’s Law” in October 2025, ending cashless bail statewide, requiring secured bonds or GPS monitoring for violent offenders, and expediting death penalty cases.
The bill passed with a veto-proof majority, as 81 Republicans and Democrats voted yes and 31 voted no.
And the opposition’s reasoning tells you everything you need to know about the progressive mind.
Democratic lawmakers condemned the bill for creating only “the perception of safety, but not real safety.” Critics warned that the law would increase the jail population. As if violence on the streets is a price worth paying to keep cells empty.
Charlotte defense attorney Tim Emry put it like this: The state shouldn’t “spend millions of dollars locking people up.”
Translation: Better to let predators roam free than to detain them. Better that women die on trains than that dangerous men sit in cells. Better that the innocent bleed than that the guilty be restrained. This is the progressive calculus laid bare. They measure success not by how many daughters come home safe but by how few criminals face consequences.
To wit: 11 North Carolina Senate Democrats walked out of the chamber before the vote rather than go on the record. Even Democrat Gov. Josh Stein, who ultimately signed the bill, couldn’t resist criticizing it for focusing too much on bail instead of “comprehensive background checks” and “common-sense gun laws.”
A woman was stabbed to death by a violent career criminal with 14 prior arrests and still released without bail — and the governor’s response is gun control.
This is what happens when an entire worldview is built on denying human depravity.
A Warning and a Call
Bethany should be enjoying a normal week, not healing from burns inflicted by a man the system repeatedly released. Iryna should be living out the hope she brought with her to America, not buried because a violent offender was once again set free.
This is not an issue of left versus right. It is an issue of order versus chaos. Protection versus abandonment. Truth versus ideology.
What can be done about it?
Pastors: Preach what Scripture says about justice and the purpose of government. Your people need clarity, not slogans.
Civic leaders: Stop pretending evil restrains itself. It doesn’t.
Voters: Justice is local. Safety is local. Accountability is local. President Trump’s executive order cutting federal support for cashless bail states is a signal, but criminal pretrial policy belongs to the states. Your state legislators, judges, and prosecutors control this. And only your state can reverse the damage.
Demand that your legislators restore judicial discretion. Support prosecutors who believe accountability protects communities. Vote out officials who value ideology over innocent life.
Christians: Evil only wins when good men do nothing. The Gospel doesn’t just save souls — it transforms societies. And God’s people do not retreat.
Stand up. Speak out. Vote for those who will push for laws and policies that protect the vulnerable. Do your part to defend the innocent and support crime victims and their families. Most importantly, share the hope of the Gospel and help people understand God’s good order and the principles of justice and accountability.
And remember that, ultimately, the gates of hell will not prevail. Not against the Church. Not against truth. Not against those who refuse to bow to lies dressed up as compassion.
For cashless bail is not just politics, it’s another aspect of spiritual warfare. But, praise God, Christ has already won the victory.
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