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Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

Mayoral Issue Grid: Crime



Mayoral Issue Grid

CRIME

-Anti-Terror Plan?
-Other Crime Priorities?
-More police?

Crime is down in New York City; the murder rate is the lowest since 1963. Yet the challenge of keeping New Yorkers safe remains a critical issue.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, terrorism became the number one priority for the New York Police Department. The recent subway bombings in Madrid and London have also raised concerns about the safety of the city's transportation system.

In the last four years, the size of police force has been reduced by about 3,800 officers to 34,824, but overtime expenses cost the city more than $200 million a year.

Fernando Ferrer

Fernando Ferrer has outlined a plan to try to make the transportation system safer from terrorism. Ferrer wants to integrate transit employees into security planning. He promises to put more security cameras in subways and stations, set up an Advisory Council for Best Security Practices, and build better coalitions with officials in Washington DC.

"Random bag searches aren't enough on their own," said Ferrer. "We need agencies to coordinate with each other, instead of developing their own plans and policies."

As part of his crime plan, Ferrer proposes hiring 1,900 new police officers. He would hire 1,000 local officers and add 900 more from the federally funded Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. Ferrer also points toward his efforts to help create the Civilian Complaint Review Board while in the New York City Council.

(Read Ferrer's security plan)

C. Virginia Fields

To fight terrorism, C. Virginia Fields proposes expanding the Operation Atlas program, the police department's anti-terrorism initiative. She also wants to run public service announcements on television and radio to instruct New Yorkers on how to prepare better for emergencies. (Read Fields' security plan)

She promises to hire 2,000 additional police officers to patrol "so-called 'soft targets' such as the subways, department stores or movie theaters."

To improve subway security, Fields calls for more security cameras, subway announcements in multiple languages, and cell phone service in tunnels and stations. "Pulling police officers from their regular duty to perform anti-terrorism activities - such as searching bags in the subways - is not the most effective way to combat terrorism," said Fields.

Fields also promises to work to reform the court system so that domestic violence cases are addressed in a more timely manner. She says she will launch new efforts to prevent hate crimes. She also pledges to continue efforts to eliminate police misconduct by demanding changes in police training and recommendations regarding the approvals and use of no-knock warrants.

(Read more on her policing plan)

Gifford Miller

To address terrorism concerns, Gifford Miller proposes creating a position of "Director of Homeland Security for the City of New York" to implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. The Homeland Security chief would coordinate emergency preparedness and subway security.

"It's wrong for the mayor to leave safety of our subways and buses to a bunch of bureaucrats in the MTA who literally can't make the trains run on time as it is right now," said Miller.

Miller promises to install 911 phones and improve emergency communication systems in stations and tunnels. Miller also plans to organize what he calls "Citizen Corps," which will recruit 50,000 emergency volunteers. (Read Miller's crime platform)

Miller would hire 1,000 new police officers to focus on quality-of-life crimes, freeing up senior officers for anti-terrorism duties.

To fight crime across the city, Miller advocates extending CompStat to include parks and hiring more parks enforcement patrol officers. He also promises to renegotiate for higher starting salaries for police officers and to put a community court in every borough and increase funding for District Attorney's offices.

Anthony Weiner

Anthony Weiner says the city must do more to secure its ports. He promises to establish federal screenings of passengers traveling into New York on boats and trains, as well as for those visiting high-profile landmarks, such as the Empire State Building.

He also promises to work to have cell phone service in transit systems and will mandate that subway platforms are equipped with necessary technology by the year 2010.

Weiner proposes hiring 3,000 additional police officers to restore the size of the department to pre 9/11 levels. Nine hundred of the additional police officers would come through the federally funded Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program.

In addition, Weiner promises to work to change current laws in order to require all ex-convicts to supply DNA samples. He advocates the use of DNA samples for criminals in a greater range of crimes. He wants to ensure that rape kits are tested within 30 days and advocates reversing laws that prevent the city from prosecuting sexual offenders for crimes that they have committed more than five years before they were identified.

Weiner also promises to focus on quality-of-life crimes. He advocates punishing those who vandalize property with graffiti with the responsibility of cleaning up their own mess. He also promises to conduct greater investigations into hate crimes. (Read Weiner's crime platform)

Michael Bloomberg

In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Michael Bloomberg launched Operation Impact, the New York Police Department's anti-terrorism unit that devotes more than 1,000 officers to the protection of the city.

"We can't rest - not for a minute - nor can we stop in our intelligence, counter-terrorism, and response capabilities," said Bloomberg.

In addition, Bloomberg points to the overall decrease in crime in the city. Crime is down 20 percent citywide. The city's murder rate is the lowest since 1963.

Bloomberg has also focused efforts on reducing "quality of life" crimes. He has created special task forces to deal with noise, graffiti, and minor crimes.

Crime has decreased even as Bloomberg has reduced the size of the police force. In 2001, there were 38,630 full time cops working for the New York Police Department. Today, that number has dropped to 34,824.

(Read Bloomberg's crime platform)

RELATED ARTICLES:
Operation Atlas
Ray Kelly on Security
Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism in NYC
Domestic Violence
Police Misconduct

 

Youth Justice Board -- Teenagers Studying (Not Committing) Crime


The first juvenile delinquents in New York Citygo back to 1797; these were the first young New Yorkers, in any case, who were thrown in (the newly built) jail.

Minors are still being incarcerated in New York. Every year, some 2,200 of them throughout the state are released back into the community. Within three years, 75 percent of these young people are rearrested.

It was this depressing statistic that inspired 16 teenagers to spend the better part of the year studying the problem of what is bureaucratically referred to as “juvenile reentry,” interviewing officials, experts, young people and their families to try to figure out what could be done.

The result was “Stop The Revolving Door: Giving Communities and Youth The Tools To Overcome Recidivism” (full 60-page report here in pdf format; or the four-page executive summary, also in pdf format.) Among the recommendations in their report, released earlier this year, were to create Connection Centers (transitional facilities) and Welcome Centers (places where young people could go “to get reliable information about services and opportunities” such as job training and peer support groups.) They suggested that the New York State Office of Children and Family Services institute a uniform system to track the warning signs – truancy, etc. – to intervene before the behavior becomes bad enough to require arrest.

This was the first project of the Youth Justice Board, a program launched by the Center for Court Innovation that gathers a group of high school students from around the city to spend a year studying a single criminal justice or public safety issue.

For the second year, the new members of the Youth Justice Board are studying school security.

Overhearing A Discussion On School Security

There probably always has been tension between order and liberty in the hallways of New York public schools. But it is not just students who resent the presence of a school security force composed of armed police officers even as statistics suggest a decrease in crime in schools with a strong police presence.

Earlier this year, when an officer went inside a classroom at Bronx Guild High School to arrest a student, it was the school’s principal, Michael Soguero, who wound up arrested, for allegedly assaulting that officer.

Partly in response to that incident, Bronx Councilmember Annabel Palma sponsored some community meetings at which students complained of school security officers – commonly called SSO’s or SSA’s – routinely harassing students.

As a result, in May, Palma decided to set up a hotline for students in her district to call in and complain if they have a problem with how they have been treated by school security. (Calling (718)589-9166 will get a message machine, not a live person; the number also currently doubles as a place to lodge complaints about a turkey plant said to be a big polluter.) The council member’s office has been able to follow up on 12 complaints phoned into the hotline, ranging from verbal abuse to violence.

The hotline was one of the topics of a freewheeling discussion at a recent meeting of the Youth Justice Board, where 15-year-old Jordan Rivera, a student at Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx, wondered whether any student would really call.

The discussion turned to an interview some of the Youth Justice Board members had done with Emily Merrill, chief of staff for Councilmember Eva Moskowitz, about the status of the proposed city legislation on bullying. This in turn led to a debate over how schools should handle students with a habit for getting into fights and not following school rules.

“It’s like cancer, you have one thing and then it spreads,” said 17-year-old Victoria Richardson, a student at Mother Cabrini High School.

George Espinal, a graduated senior at Washington-Irving High School, advocated a tough-minded approach to problem students.

Other students talked about alternative high schools, so-called “second-chance schools”, where students with behavior problems can end up.

Rivera said he had friends who were sent to second-chance schools. “It was like nobody paid them any mind there, and they was like, ‘No one cares for my education, why should I?’” Rivera said.

Reynold Martin, a student at the Academy of Urban Planning, wondered about the root of the students’ behavior. “What if the reason they were acting bad was because they weren’t getting an education?

“You can influence somebody positively,” said Martin, and then spontaneously came up with an idea: “Why can’t they try putting one so-called problem student in a class of honor students…see how their grades are…I think they’d like it.”

Kids These Days

Kids!/ I don't know what's wrong with these kids today!/Kids!/ Who can understand anything they say?/…Why can't they be like we were,/Perfect in every way?/ What's the matter with kids today?

Paul Lynde sang these lyrics in Bye Bye Birdie, on Broadway in 1960, and it’s the tune of many adults then and now.

But over the past decade, there has been a trend toward the creation of youth civic groups looking to solve the problems of youth – and of government interest in hearing what they have to say, according to Wendy Wheeler, president of the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development, a national organization that helps youth advocacy groups get started.

Wheeler said that there have been cases where policies advocated by youth wound up being largely adopted wholesale, such as the guidelines for foster care residents proposed by the Young Women’s Project in Washington, D.C.

This year, Dory Hack, who is overseeing the Youth Justice Board, said the group will be making its recommendations on school security in October to a host of city officials. Organizers understand that the recommendations the group makes might not directly lead to policy changes. But Tabetha Cody Ritter, a ninth-grader at ACORN High School for Social Justice in Brooklyn, said that what she has learned in the meetings has sparked discussions among her friends who aren’t in the program.

“They’re interested,” she said, when she explains to them some of the details of school safety policy. If other students are having similar experiences, then the program may have a far-reaching impact after all.

 

Section 8 Tenants Win The Right To Stay In Their Rent-Stabilized Apartments


In a decision which clarifies the rights of the approximately 52,000 New York City tenants who receive Section 8 housing subsidies, a State Supreme Court justice has issued a declaratory judgment finding that landlords of such tenants are required to renew expiring leases for rent stabilized apartments, and to renew them with Section 8 benefits.

In Rosario v. Diagonal Realty, Manhattan Justice Joan Madden held that although federal law allows landlords to withdraw from Section 8 participation at the end of a lease, New York's Rent Stabilization Law controls and does not permit "opting out ". Local law, the judge wrote, mandates that tenants be offered renewal leases on the same terms as the existing lease. If there is a Section 8 rent subsidy, the same terms must govern the next lease. The decision, which is at variance with several Housing Court cases, does not allow owners of rent stabilized apartments who have accepted the Section 8 vouchers and the accompanying tax benefits, to refuse them when a lease expires. Prior to the commencement of the lawsuit, The New York City Housing Authority had informed the landlords in writing, that they "cannot offer the tenant a renewal term without also renewing the Section 8 subsidy."

The concept of the subsidy created by the federal department of Housing and Urban Development in 1974, and known as Section 8, is that qualified low income tenants should not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income for rent. Landlords who participate in the program receive tax incentives to provide affordable housing by contract with HUD, by way of contracts with local housing authorities such as the New York City Housing Authority.

In a group of cases consolidated for decision because they presented identical facts and issues, the judge found that tenants receiving Section 8 subsidies would be denied the benefits enjoyed by other New York City tenants living in rent stabilized apartments if their landlords refused to continue their tenancies on the same terms. To treat the subsidized tenants differently from other tenants protected by local laws, would have a discriminatory effect , Justice Madden wrote. Except for regulated rent increases, non-subsidized tenants are entitled to lease renewals under the same terms as the expiring lease. None of the seven tenants who commenced the proceedings through the Legal Aid Society and Bronx Legal Services, could afford to remain in the apartments under new conditions and at newly set rents.

The property owners had argued that despite New York law, under federal law they had the right to opt out of Section 8 participation at the end of a lease term. They maintained that they were not refusing to renew the leases, but wanted the right to renew them at market rents or on other terms and conditions, but without the subsidy. Their theory was that a 1996 amendment to federal law barred landlords from terminating tenancies "during the term of the lease." This, they reasoned, freed them from the original terms when the tenancy was at the point of expiration. The landlords also argued that discrimination would exist only if they had refused to rent to the low income tenants in the first place. However, no landlord is required to enter into an initial agreement with the Housing Authority to rent apartments to Section 8 recipients, unless that landlord is receiving public benefits in the form of tax relief. A tenant qualified for the subsidy must find her own apartment offered by a property owner who participates in the Section 8 program because that individual or corporation is also receiving a public subsidy. Justice Madden rejected the notion that the federal law prevented New York from relying on its own protective statutes governing housing.

While protection is being afforded eligible tenants, landlords enter the Section 8 program because of the advantages afforded them. New York City provides tax incentives in the form of abatements and exemptions for the improvement and rehabilitation of residential buildings and to increase the availability of affordable housing. The city Administrative Code, known as J-51, specifies that property owners participating in this tax relief must not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status or citizenship. The section also bars discrimination on the basis of eligibility or participation in a governmentally funded housing assistance program, including, but not limited to, the section 8 housing certificate program. Therefore, any property owner taking advantage of J-5l is bound by the nondiscrimination requirements. At the time of this enactment, then Mayor David Dinkins emphasized that "all housing, including private housing receiving public subsidies or tax benefits, is available to all New Yorkers, especially to those who are most in need." Justice Madden, in her opinion, expressly stated that nothing in federal law was intended to preempt "operation of State and local laws that prohibit discrimination against a Section 8 voucher holder." It is "unquestionable," she wrote, that the anti-discrimination provisions of the J-51 law are not preempted by any provision of the Section 8 law.

"...any landlord in New York City receiving a J-51 tax abatement is legally mandated under the anti-discrimination protections of the J-51 law, to accept and continue accepting a tenant's Section 8 rent subsidy." The defendant landlords who had refused to renew leases unless ordered to do so by a State Supreme Court judge, "are obligated to continue accepting their tenants' section 8 rent subsidies, and are not permitted to opt-out of Section 8 as long as the are receiving the benefits of a J-51 tax abatement."

Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice 



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