Black and brown New Yorkers acquired 85% of the NYPD’s felony summons final yr, based on John Jay Faculty’s Information Collaborative for Justice (DCJ). And the quantity issued are up for the primary time since 2017 when the Felony Justice Reform Act funneled many such low-level offenses out of the felony courts and into the civil justice system.
The findings, which spotlight a bigger, upcoming report, was launched this month stemming from a portion of 2021’s Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan devoted to analyzing present felony summons practices that disproportionately influence low-income communities and Black and brown New Yorkers. And there’s clearly extra work wanted.
Final yr, Black New Yorkers had been greater than 9 instances likelier to obtain a felony summons than their white counterparts. Usually nicknamed a “C summons” or a “pink ticket,” the follow criminalizes “high quality of life” crimes. For instance, the highest expenses final yr had been disorderly conduct and public consumption of alcohol.
“A summons is an look ticket for committing sure low-level, non-fingerprintable offenses,” stated report writer Anna Stenkamp. “The numbers proven inside this analysis be aware are just for these issued by the NYPD to people. On the summons it instructs the one that acquired it to seem in felony courtroom at a selected date, time and placement relying on the place the summons was issued. And it may end up in a conviction or penalties or fines.
“If a person fails to seem on their look date, then a warrant might be issued for that. Oftentimes the individual is not going to be arrested, they’re simply [issued] this ticket after which instructed to seem and pay the fines.”
Greater than 61% of summons had been issued to New Yorkers incomes beneath town’s median family revenue. However throughout the board, Black New Yorkers are disproportionately given look tickets—actually, the $100,000+ family revenue bracket sees the very best share of Black New Yorkers issued felony summons, though there’s a considerably smaller pattern dimension to tug from.
So does the info point out Black and brown New Yorkers are overcriminalized? Or are white New Yorkers under-criminalized? The researchers say since there’s little proving the next quantity of summons feeds into public security.
“[We] will not be conscious of any proof that issuing a lot of summons via low degree infractions reduces severe crime,” stated Stenkamp. “It’s higher to concentrate on tackling the disparities that we do see, by decreasing the variety of summons issued to Black and brown Yorkers.”Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public security for the Amsterdam Information. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps preserve him writing tales like this one; please think about making a tax-deductible reward of any quantity right now by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
