Non-White NYers Make Up 90% Of NYC Broken Window Arrests: Study

New York City NY

30 March, 2022

11:40 AM

Description

NEW YORK CITY — People of color make up 91 percent of New Yorkers arrested for alleged minor "broken window" crimes subject to a new crackdown from Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD, according to a new study released Tuesday. The Legal Aid's analysis arrived Wednesday as multiple City Council members urged Adams at an oversight hearing Wednesday to reconsider the NYPD's recent revival of its minor-crimes crackdown. "Mayor, we cannot police our way out of this," City Council Member Charles Barron said in testimony. "You can't turn our communities into a police state." The crackdown is a key component of Adams' "Blueprint to End Gun Violence" — which also reinstates anti-crime teams and calls for bail reform rollbacks — which was the subject of Wednesday's hearing. Adams unveiled the blueprint amid a crime spike that's seen hate crime, murders and robbery rise. His representative argued Wednesday the new policing policies were needed and wanted in New York City. "What we are asking for are practical measures that the vast majorities of New Yorkers want," Deputy Mayor Philip Banks testified. "We all, everyone, want a safe New York." But the return of these policies has spurred outrage from social justice activists, public defenders and politicians such as Brooklyn City Council Member Chi Ossé, who raised concerns of over disturbing video of a young woman's arrest after jumping the turnstile last week. Ossé Wednesday requested to know what accountability there would be for officers who did not conduct quality-of-life arrests in a respectful manner. "While they were holding her and slamming her head into a wall, one of your officers said ... 'I'll pop you in your f---ing mouth," Ossé testified. "What happens to officers who don't get in ... do they stay on city streets and continue slam my constituents heads into walls?" Other Council Members, such as Barron, argued the blueprint amplified policing while "paying lip service" to mental health, anti-poverty and violence interruption programming needed, and wanted, in his district. Council Member Tiffany Cabán cited research from the National Academy of Sciences which analyzed four decades of data and found "broken window policing" generated "small to null impacts on crime." Cabán asked NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, "So why are you adopting a strategy that decades of experience and research doesn't work?" "I am telling you what works for this city," replied Sewell, "And what we are focused on in this police department and the mayor's blueprint."