ALBANY, N.Y. — When Democrats pushed through a law last spring that sharply curtailed cash bail for nonviolent defendants, they hailed it as a landmark measure to stop the poor from being jailed before trial simply because they had few resources.

Now, as the rules take effect on Jan. 1, a backlash has arisen among numerous district attorneys, judges, county legislators and law enforcement officials, who are sounding alarms and raising the specter of dangerous criminals on the loose. Some Republicans are using the issue to paint Democrats as soft on crime.

“Estimates of what’s going to happen have ranged from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ to something like the panic in the opening scene in ‘Escape from New York,’” said Greg Berman, the director of the Center of Court Innovation, a nonprofit group. “There are still a lot of unknowns.”

While New Jersey, California, Illinois and other states have limited the use of bail, New York is one of the few states to abolish bail for many crimes without also giving state judges the discretion to consider whether a person poses a threat to public safety in deciding whether to hold them.

That decision has many prosecutors and police officials worried the changes will have unintended consequences.

“When you have individuals that are standing before a judge and immediately being released, and essentially everyone in the room knows that this person is a danger to the community, I think we need to look at the system and make sure that judges can make common-sense decisions,” the New York City police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, said in a radio interview on 1010 WINS in early December.

Under the new law, judges will no longer be able to set bail for a long list of misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, including stalking, assault without serious injury, burglary, many drug offenses, and even some kinds of arson and robbery.

Thousands of people currently in jail awaiting trial across the state will be automatically released, and about 90 percent of new defendants each year in New York will remain free as their cases move through the courts. Most cities and counties will rely on supervised release programs — in which officials stay in touch with defendants through phone calls or meetings — to ensure people show up to court.

In New York City alone, 20,000 more people would have been released in 2018 under the law, according to a report from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

In recent weeks, courts around the state have begun releasing batches of defendants from jails under the new rules to avoid a rush as the new year starts, and the law’s opponents have pounced on past cases in which people out on bail committed crimes as harbingers of the future.

Supporters of the bail law say critics are being alarmist: Judges will still be able to set bail for almost all violent felonies, and the old law unfairly punished the poor, they point out. Neither Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo nor Democratic legislative leaders have given any sign that they might delay or significantly alter the law, despite the intensifying opposition.

“I know change is scary, change is hard,” said Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Westchester County Democrat who leads Albany’s upper chamber. “But, again, we are talking about justice.”

Backers say the new bail system will pay dividends by allowing people awaiting trial to remain in their homes with their families and jobs — all elements of maintaining stability in low-income communities. Moreover, they argue that law enforcement in New York — a liberal stronghold — should be embracing the changes, rather than fighting them.

“These reforms passed in late March,” said Khalil A. Cumberbatch, the chief strategist of New Yorkers United for Justice, a criminal justice reform coalition. “The district attorneys across the state who are in opposition could have begun preparing, as opposed to last-minute fear-stoking.”

Still, prosecutors and law enforcement officials say the law takes a critical decision away from judges. Even though under the old law judges were supposed to consider only the risk of flight in setting bail, as a practical matter judges still had the discretion to set a higher bail for people with long arrest records or who showed other signs they might commit another crime.

Some states, like New Jersey, that have abolished or curtailed the use of cash bail have established a system for assessing the risk that a defendant might commit another crime, and allow judges to hold people to protect public safety. But New York simply abolished the use of bail for most nonviolent crimes without establishing a such a method.

Prosecutors say that leaves judges powerless to hold many low-level and midlevel defendants, who could be released within hours of being arrested.

“District attorneys do not believe in general that people should be held in jail just because they can’t afford to get out,” said David Hoovler, the district attorney in Orange County and president of the District Attorneys Association of New York. “But people who have done bad things and are repeat offenders will be getting out.”

Republicans facing elections next year have begun to wield the issue as a cudgel against Democrats. “I’m already campaigning on it,” Senator John J. Flanagan, the Republican minority leader, said at a news conference in mid-December in the State Capitol. “And I think we have an obligation to do so.”

Democratic lawmakers privately worry the pushback will hamper their pursuit of a raft of additional criminal justice bills when they return to the State Capitol in January, including a measure to allow people with felony convictions to vote and serve on a jury.

“Given the blowback that we’ve seen before the reforms have even gone into effect, the notion that we could do far-reaching criminal justice things in an election year, I don’t know how many folks are comfortable with that,” said one lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about ongoing deliberations.

Under New York’s old bail law, judges could require defendants to put up cash or a bond to ensure that they show up for court after they are released from jail. If the defendants do not appear, the bail is forfeited to the state, and a warrant is issued for their arrest. Since the 1970s, New York judges could consider only the risk of flight in setting bail, not public safety.

Opponents of the old system said it criminalized poverty. It is hard to mount an effective defense from jail, and studies have shown that people jailed before trial are more likely to plead guilty and to be sentenced to prison, which tilts the justice system in favor of wealthy defendants.

The new rules require judges to impose the “least restrictive conditions” that will assure people return to court. Those include supervised release, travel restrictions and, for some serious offenses, electronic monitoring.

Mr. Hoovler and other county prosecutors say they support the broad goals of the law, but also argue that its passage and implementation have been rushed. They have noted that New Jersey allowed several years for prosecutors and law enforcement officials to adapt after the state voted to change its law in 2014.

Several prosecutors, including the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., have faulted New York State for not providing more money to create or expand programs that will track defendants who are free waiting trail.

But a larger worry among prosecutors and police officials is that some defendants released under the new rules will continue to commit crimes, and a few may try to intimidate potential witnesses. The list of crimes for which people will not have to post bail includes, they point out, types of burglary, larceny, drug sales, assault, stalking, harassment, arson, forgery, prostitution and even bail jumping itself.

“Someone who deals in drugs is not someone who, once arrested, will just decide to give it up and find legal employment,” said Patrick Swanson, the district attorney in Chautauqua County, on the state’s western border. “They will continue to sell drugs.”

As the dire warnings from law enforcement have grown louder, advocates for the law have moved to fend off the criticisms.

New Yorkers United for Justice has spent more than $2 million to champion the law, and in early December hosted dozens of Democratic lawmakers for a two-day retreat in Westchester County to discuss how to defend the changes. . Lawmakers listened to panel discussions, including one led by Meek Mill, the rapper who spent over a decade fighting drug and gun charges.

The group also created a television and mail campaign featuring the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez. One of only a handful of prosecutors who fully support the legislation, Mr. Gonzalez said in an interview that limiting cash bail has led to lower crime rates in other jurisdictions.

“Across our country, reform has made communities safer and stronger,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “Reform will make our state safer and stronger, too.”

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