NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — A 20-year-old man was shot Wednesday night in Niagara Falls and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Elected leaders say violent crime like this is on the rise in the city, and they're putting much of the blame on criminal justice reform.

"There's no doubt in my mind that there needs to be changes,” Chief John Faso, Niagara Falls superintendent of police, said. “If we're going to see a reduction in crime, if we're going to see things — quality of life — get better, changes have to be made.”

Niagara Falls leaders say reforms to the state's criminal justice system had a compounding impact on violent crime rates.

"An increase in shootings. An increase in murders. An increase in assaults,” state Senator Robert Ortt, (R) state minority leader, said. “And that's I think very important to be able to extrapolate out. It's not necessarily an increase in crime as a whole running the gamut. It's an increase in violent offense.”

Ortt says the rise in these crimes are being seen in parts of the city where discovery reform, and the Raise the Age law, were supposed to help.

He claims the only people benefitting from the criminal justice reforms are the criminals.

"Often we're finding they're back on the street very soon after their arrest,” Senator Ortt said. “And what often happens? They go and they reoffend.”

State Assembly Member Angelo Morinello says the analysis of these reforms is necessary, but there was no method put in place to see how they were working and nobody in the criminal justice field was consulted.

He wants Governor Hochul to form a commission to do just that.

"We need police, district attorneys, judges, psychologists, we need those who want to push some of the criminal justice reforms to sit down to see how far they have gone, to see if adjustments have made," Assemblyman Morinello, (R, C, I-Niagara Falls), said. 

Chief Faso says to further combat violent crime in Niagara Falls, the police need more staff, equipment and cooperation from citizens.