AN ONLINE LIBRARY ABOUT MARIJUANA POSSESSION ARRESTS,
RACE AND POLICE POLICY IN NEW YORK CITY AND BEYOND
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AN ONLINE LIBRARY ABOUT MARIJUANA POSSESSION ARRESTS, RACE AND POLICE POLICY IN NEW YORK CITY AND BEYOND |
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FIRST
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• DOCUMENTING THE ARREST CRUSADE ____________________________________
Scandals of the NYPD - new • WHO IS ADRIAN SCHOOLCRAFT? - new • QUOTAS, QUOTAS, QUOTAS - new • SCANDALS OF THE NYPD - new ____________________________________
Consequences and Context
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COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES
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Race and Marijuana Arrests, USA
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WASHINGTON DC, CHICAGO, ETC.
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___________________________________ • SUMMONSES & TICKETS (coming)
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NEW YORK CITY'S MARIJUANA POSSESSION ARRESTS
JOURNALISM AND COMMENTARY (From now to 2009)
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"The Human Cost of Zero Tolerance" by Brent Staples, New York Times Editorial, April 18, 2012 There is no proof that the zero-tolerance policing adopted by New York and other cities in the 1990’s had anything to do with the decline in violent crime across the nation. Crime also dropped in jurisdictions that did not use the approach.
Millions of people have been arrested under the policy for minor violations, like possession of small amounts of marijuana. And one thing is beyond dispute: this arrest-first policy has filled the courts to bursting with first-time, minor offenders who do not belong there and wreaked havoc with people’s lives. Even when cases are dismissed, people can be shadowed for years by error-ridden criminal records.
The human toll is evident in New York City, where last year 50,000 people — one every 10 minutes — were arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana. The city downplays the significance, saying these cases are typically dismissed and the record sealed if the person stays out of trouble for a year. But getting tangled in the court system is harrowing. And the record-keeping can be unreliable and far more porous than the city suggests.
An analysis by the Legal Action Center, which assists 2,500 people with criminal records each year, has found that nearly half of its clients’ rap sheets have errors. Defense lawyers say that too often the courts and police fail to report to the state about dismissals and other outcomes favorable to defendants.
As for “sealed” records, background-screening companies working for private employers can harvest data at the time of an arrest and there is no guarantee that they will update to reflect dismissals — or expunge the information when records are sealed by the courts. While it is illegal to exclude people from jobs based solely on arrest or convictions, unless there is a compelling business reason for doing so, many employers quickly write off applicants who are flagged in these databases.
New York City drove up its marijuana arrests — from just under 1,500 in 1980 to more than 50,000 a year today — despite the fact that the State Legislature in 1977 decriminalized possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana, making it a violation, roughly akin to a traffic ticket. The problem is that the Legislature made public display of any amount of marijuana a misdemeanor, which can lead to arrest, jail and a record that follows the person for years. And New York’s police have been repeatedly accused of arresting people for possession after forcing them to show “in public” the small amounts they had. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly tacitly admitted this practice last year, directing officers to make an arrest only when the drug really was in view.
Critics say the fact that 87 percent of those arrested are black or Hispanic suggests that the police are deliberately singling out minority citizens for arrests that push some of them permanently to the very margins of society.
An arrest, even without a conviction, can swiftly unleash disastrous personal consequences. Consider the 2011 case of a 26-year-old single mother from Brooklyn whose lawyers say she was arrested after the police forced her to reveal a small packet of marijuana hidden in her purse. The judge said the charges would be dismissed if she stayed out of trouble for a year. A week later, the woman had been fired from her job as a janitor with the New York City Housing Authority. She has not been rehired.
The city’s Housing Authority convenes a termination hearing when a tenant is arrested. The authority says no one is evicted for low-level marijuana arrests “in and of themselves.” But Steven Banks, attorney-in-chief of the Legal Aid Society, which represents 30,000 people in minor marijuana arrests a year, says these cases often end with the leaseholder ejecting the person arrested — perhaps a son or grandson — to avoid eviction. People convicted of some misdemeanors cannot apply for public housing for three years; those convicted of violations are ineligible for two years.
Young parents have faced neglect accusations in family court after marijuana arrests, even if they are not ultimately charged with any crime. In a case described in The Times, a woman’s son and niece were removed from her home by child welfare workers after police found about a third of an ounce of marijuana — below the threshold for a misdemeanor — in a boyfriend’s backpack in her Bronx apartment. The district attorney declined to prosecute, but the children spent time in foster care, and her niece was not returned for over a year.
New York City’s overly zealous marijuana arrests, coupled with the unreliability and porousness of record-keeping, damage the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. The Legislature needs to fix this. It must drop the public-display distinction for marijuana, which invites far too many abuses. It should also press law enforcement officials and the court system to make sure that criminal records are more accurate to start with and that people who are victimized by errors have a plausible way of getting them corrected.
Employers and government agencies also have a responsibility here. They must not rush to their own judgment about minor offenders.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg needs to recognize that zero-tolerance policing is not the panacea his Police Department seems to think it is. The police need to spend more time tracking down serious crime and less on minor offenses. There is nothing minor about a record that can follow people for the rest of their lives.
+ Young arrestees chained together led into the Brooklyn Court House. Photo: City Limits
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"Stop Making Criminals Out of Young People" by Edward Koch, April 26, 2012 Edward Koch was the 105th mayor of New York City for three terms, from 1978 to 1989. He previously served for nine years as a congressman.
In 1977 in New York, personal possession and use of marijuana were decriminalized. So why were 525,000 people arrested for such possession and use since then?
In 1977, I was the principal congressional sponsor in the House of Representatives of legislation that created the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. The commission examined the aspects of decriminalization and legalization of marijuana. The commission which became known as the Shafer Commission recommended decriminalization for personal use and possession of marijuana in a limited amount.
Eight or nine states, New York being one of them, accepted the report and according to The New York Times in its editorial of April 2, “Under the 1977 law, possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana is a violation, subject to a $100 fine for the first offense. But possession of any amount that is in public view is a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in jail and a $500 fine. Civil rights lawyers say that many of those stopped by city police were arrested after officers told them to empty their pockets, which brought the small amount of drugs into view.”
However, reports the editorial, “Marijuana arrests declined after passage of the 1977 law, but that changed in the 1990s. Between 1997 and 2010, the city arrested 525,000 people for low-level, public-view possession, according to a legislative finding.”
In effect, the editorial is stating the arresting cop can cause the offense to become a misdemeanor by requiring the individual to empty his pockets and publicly display the marijuana. This is an outrage, if The Times is correct. Even if the public display is otherwise inadvertent or the foolish act of a person, particularly a young person, it should not constitute a criminal act.
The issue has heated up because as The Times editorial pointed out, “80 percent of those arrested in the city are black and Latino, despite substantial data showing that whites are more likely to use the drug.”
The answer is obvious. The state legislature should make public possession of a small amount for personal use a violation instead of a misdemeanor. Violations are not listed as crimes. Let’s stop making criminals out of our young men and women, giving them criminal records which will prevent them from getting jobs and ruin their lives.
Bronx cops made hundreds of unlawful marijuana arrests and trumped-up charges over a five-month period last year despite a warning from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, claims a study by the Bronx Defenders. The study released Friday shows that illegal stops and searches are an “epidemic” in the Bronx, said Robin Steinberg, Bronx Defenders executive director. Her organization interviewed 518 people apprehended for marijuana possession from May to October 2011 and found that 41% had their rights violated. In 176 cases, there was no cause for people to be detained, and in 184, the organization concluded that cops "manufactured" misdemeanor charges by forcing people to show their pot. Nearly all the people arrested for marijuana possession in the Bronx are black and Latino men. The cases reveal "a policing strategy that overwhelmingly and disproportionately targets young people of color and relies on rampant disregard for the civil rights of the people the NYPD is charged with protecting," the organization said in a statement.
"Examining Marijuana Arrests", New York Times Editorial, April 2, 2012
State data show that the New York Police Department arrested more than 50,000 people last year for low-level possession, with about 30 percent having no prior arrest record. More than 11,700 of those arrested were 16- to 19-year-olds; nearly half had never been arrested before and 94 percent had no prior convictions.... Civil rights lawyers say that many of those stopped by city police were arrested after officers told them to empty their pockets, which brought the small amount of drugs into view. The Bronx Defenders, a public defender agency in that borough, reported last week that it had examined the cases of 518 people arrested for low-level possession in 2011 and concluded that 40 percent of them were unlawfully arrested or charged. Marijuana arrests declined after passage of the 1977 law, but that changed in the 1990s. Between 1997 and 2010, the city arrested 525,000 people for low-level, public-view possession, according to a legislative finding. Lawmakers and civil rights lawyers are rightly outraged that more than 80 percent of those arrested in the city are black and Latino, despite substantial data showing that whites are more likely to use the drug. Bills pending in both the Senate and the Assembly could help reduce the inequity in the law by making public possession of a small amount a violation instead of a misdemeanor.
also at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/30/nypd-stop-and-frisk-marijuana
Police officers in New York are "manufacturing"
criminal offenses by forcing people with small amounts of marijuana to
reveal their drugs, according to a survey by public defenders. Nearly half
of New Yorkers picked up for small amounts of marijuana possession in recent
months were not displaying the drug before they were stopped, the study
shows, despite an order by New York police chief Ray Kelly that officers
should not charge people in such circumstances. The revelations will fuel
criticisms of the NYPD's controversial "stop and frisk" policy, which
opponents say is criminalising a generation of young people from ethnic
minorities and leading to tensions between police and the public...
Vinci was illegally searched and then arrested for $5 of marijuana on Superbowl Sunday Video shot by Alexander Hotz, edited by Alice Brennan
"Study: NYPD Violating Kelly Edict To End Improper Marijuana Arrests" New York World, by Alice Brennan and Michael Keller, March 30, 2012 Six months after New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly ordered all police officers under his command to cease arresting people carrying marijuana, many are still being handcuffed and sent to jail after officers coerce or trick them into displaying the drug. That’s the conclusion of a close review of 517 cases by Bronx Defenders, a criminal defense and legal advocacy organization, which found that nearly half of those picked up for small amounts of marijuana possession in recent months were not displaying the drug before they were stopped. Scott Levy, an attorney at the Bronx Defenders, the legal and advocacy organization that led the survey, said: “This is clearly an illegal practice"....
New York City has the dubious
-- and well-earned -- reputation as the world's marijuana arrest capital,
with more than 50,000 people being arrested for pot possession there last
year alone at an estimated cost of $75 million. It also has a mayor, Michael
Bloomberg, who has famously said he smoked marijuana and enjoyed it, yet who
presides over a police force that has run roughshod over the state's
marijuana decriminalization law in order to make those arrests, almost all
of which are of members of the city's black and brown minority communities.
Rally at Mayor Bloomberg's home, March 29, 2012 Photo: Drug Policy Alliance
"Police Powers in New York" New York Times Editorial, March 17, 2012
The Police Department’s tendency toward blanket surveillance is on vivid display in its stop-and-frisk program, which results in the stopping of more than 600,000 mainly minority citizens on the streets every year. The department credits the program with reducing crime, but there is no proof that it does. A study carried out in connection with a federal lawsuit against the department has found that only about 6 percent of stops result in arrest and that less than 1 percent turn up weapons. In addition to criminalizing the victims of these stops, the program has undermined respect for law enforcement in the very communities where it is most needed.
Like stop-and-frisk, the city’s marijuana arrest initiative has also raised profound civil rights concerns. The state decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana 35 years ago and decreed that people would be arrested for those amounts only if they were displaying the drug in public. Even so, the city arrests tens of thousands of mainly black and Latino young people for possession every year. The department tacitly admitted wrongdoing last year, in a memo telling officers to arrest people only if the drug was in plain public view. But it could take years before the rank and file embrace the change.
The city has described the marijuana arrests as a way of getting criminals off the street. But state data show that a majority of people arrested under this program have no prior convictions. The dangers associated with the program were underscored last month in the Bronx when an overzealous drug detail pursued an unarmed teenager into his home and shot him to death. A packet of marijuana was found at the scene.
“City Has Highest Number of Marijuana Arrests in More Than a Decade” by Ailsa Chang, WNYC, February 01, 2012 [Text and four-minute NPR news story here]
Last year, New York City police officers made the greatest number of marijuana arrests in more than a decade, according to new state records.
The NYPD arrested about 50,700 people for low-level marijuana possession in 2011, a figure that comes just months after the department ordered officers not make arrests for marijuana possession if the marijuana was never in public view.
Defense lawyers and law enforcement experts say they don't think the order has done much to change what they believe to be unlawful police behavior on the streets....
For years, there have been allegations that officers force people to display their marijuana in public view before arresting them -- by either ordering people to empty their pockets or reaching into pockets and pulling marijuana out themselves. Kelly's order plainly stated that an officer may not arrest someone for a misdemeanor in those cases.
"I would say that about half of the marijuana arrest cases that I see are actually mischarged misdemeanors,” said Legal Aid lawyer Renate Lunn, “and, in fact, even the court papers say that the marijuana was recovered from some place that wasn't in public view, such as a sock or a backpack or the glove compartment of a car.”
Lawyers elsewhere in the city are seeing similar percentages of what they think are improper arrests. Scott Levy of the Bronx Defenders is heading up the Marijuana Arrest Project, which is systematically collecting data on the quality of marijuana arrests they're seeing throughout the Bronx.
"I would say as much as 40 percent of these cases stem from illegal searches, illegal stops of our clients, and the mischarging of our clients where clients are charged with the misdemeanor of possessing marijuana in public view where they only actually possessed it in their pocket," he said.
"Last year, more than 50,000 misdemeanor marijuana arrests flooded the
courts in New York City. It’s now by far the most common misdemeanor charge
in the city." - Ailsa Chang, WNYC, Feb 1, 2012 Photo: Karly Domb Sadof, WNYC
Low-level arrests for marijuana possession in New York City increased for the seventh straight year in 2011, according to a study released Wednesday — despite a September memorandum from the police commissioner that reminded officers to follow the letter of the law and not arrest people with the drug unless they have it in plain view.
Though arrests dropped significantly after Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s memorandum, an increase of over 6 percent during the first eight months of the year more than offset the decline, according to the analysis, conducted by a Queens College sociology professor and released by the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group critical of police marijuana-arrest policies.
The year-end arrest total was 50,684, up 0.6 percent from 2010, the study found, constituting more arrests than in the entire 19-year period 1978 to 1996 combined. Marijuana possession was once again the largest arrest category in the city last year, and the arrests cost the city about $75 million, said Harry G. Levine, the sociologist who did the analysis.
The high numbers of marijuana arrests under the Bloomberg administration have been linked by critics to the police’s stop-and-frisk practices and disproportionate enforcement against blacks and Hispanics.
While state law makes possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana an arrestable misdemeanor offense only when someone has it in public view, critics say that officers routinely make people they “stop and frisk” empty their pockets, then arrest them for having marijuana in public view.
T he vast majority of those stopped and frisked are black or Hispanic. And under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, from 2002 to 2010, about 87 percent of those arrested for marijuana were black or Hispanic, while only 10 percent were white, according to a breakdown on Dr. Levine’s Web site based on data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
“It is worth remembering and pointing out that U.S. government studies consistently find that young whites use marijuana at higher rates than young blacks and Latinos,” Dr. Levine said in a statement. “But the police patrols, stop and frisks, and arrest quotas are highest in black and Latino neighborhoods, and that is where the N.Y.P.D. makes most marijuana possession arrests. Mayor Bloomberg is like the Energizer bunny of marijuana arrests – he just keeps going and going and going.”
“Pot arrests top 50K in 2011 despite NYPD order” by Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press, Feb 1, 2012 (over a hundred papers across the US carried this AP story)
New York City police still arrested more than 50,000 people on low-level marijuana charges last year despite a drop off after officers were told not to use tactics that critics decry as tricking people into getting arrested, according to New York state data obtained by an advocacy group. In fact, 2011 arrests for the lowest-ranking marijuana misdemeanor rose slightly, from about 50,400 to 50,700, the New York Division of Criminal Justice figures show.
The continued slew of pot arrests came as the drug policy group and some elected officials trained attention on the low-level marijuana charges that account for more arrests in the city than any other crime. Almost 35 years after state lawmakers raised the bar for booking people instead of ticketing them on marijuana-possession charges, these arrests account for about one in every seven cases in the city's criminal courts.
The arrests have soared in the last 10 years. With the 2011 numbers, the New York Police Department has made more than 227,000 bottom-rung marijuana possession arrests in the last five years — slightly more than the entire span from 1978 to 2001, according to an analysis by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine....
Stephen Glover said he was standing outside a Bronx job-training center in November, sharing a box of mints with friends, when police came up to him, asked him whether he had anything in his pockets that could hurt them and searched them without asking his permission. They found the remains of two marijuana cigarettes in his pockets, he said."They just take it upon themselves" to search, the 30-year-old Glover said by phone Wednesday....
The Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit legal group, still hears plenty of accounts like Glover's, lawyer Scott D. Levy said. "Our clients are still regularly stopped, searched, and marijuana is recovered from their pocket, but at no point where they having it out, smoking it," he said. But most take a dismissal deal or plead guilty to a violation, rather than demand a hearing that generally comes after months of court dates and prolongs a case that can compromise job prospects, he said. "So the vast majority of cases are pleading out before a hearing is ever held and these issues are really aired," Levy said....
Marijuana is the nation's most commonly used illegal drug. Use has declined among those 19 and older since the late 1970s, began to rise again in the early 1990s but not hit '70s levels, according to the latest installment of Monitoring the Future, a government-funded study conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. To the drug-policy advocates, the trend suggests the surge in New York City pot busts stems from the stop-and-frisk strategy, rather than reflecting drug use. More than a half a million people, mostly black and Hispanic men, were stopped in 2010. About 10 percent of stops result in arrests.
Meanwhile, two state lawmakers have proposed to make it a violation, rather than a misdemeanor, to possess less than 25 grams or about 7/8 of an ounce of marijuana, whether it's in the open or not.
"New York remains in a fiscal crisis, and we simply cannot afford to arrest tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens for possessing small amounts of marijuana - especially when so many of these arrests are the result of illegal searches or false charges," Sen. Mark Grisanti said in a statement Wednesday. The Republican, who's a criminal defense lawyer, is sponsoring the proposal with Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.
It's difficult to put a price tag on the city's arrests, but Levine has estimated it cost an estimated $75 million in 2011 to process, jail and prosecute the low-level arrests in New York. That figure was a compilation of estimated court costs, police manpower and jail time, averaging about $1,500 per arrest — a cost shared by the state and city. The city budget alone is $65 billion.
"Hypocritical NYPD Continues Racist Pot Arrest Crusade," By Steven Wishnia, Alternet, Dec 30, 2011
Despite a well-publicized police order instructing officers not to use bogus pretexts to justify marijuana arrests, New York City remains the pot-bust capital of the United States.... The department had come under criticism because the basis for many pot busts was that defendants had emptied their pockets when told to do so by police — and when they did, they brought their marijuana into “public view.”
In practice, little has changed, say defense attorneys and legalization advocates. “It still is happening a lot,” says Sydney Peck, a Brooklyn public defender. “A police officer pulls marijuana out of someone’s pocket, and all of a sudden, it’s marijuana in public view”....
To be prosecuted for marijuana in public view, explains Odalys Alonzo, chief assistant to Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, the defendant has to be observed either smoking in public or displaying a glassine or plastic package that police recognize as marijuana. “Sometimes, we see three people charged for one joint, because we’ve seen them passing a joint,” she says....
“The volume seems to have kept up,” says Scott Levy, a lawyer with the Bronx Defenders, a public-defender group. The biggest change since Kelly’s announcement, Levy suspects, may be in how complaints are phrased. Police, he says, are increasingly reporting that they saw a defendant “take an object and put it in their pocket” and then found it to be marijuana when they searched them, but “our clients are saying that they never had it out.”
Joshua Saunders, a staff attorney at the Brooklyn Defenders Society, another public-defender group, says he’s seen a lot of “dropsy” cases, in which police say they saw the defendant drop the marijuana on the ground. He points out the police report of a man busted for three bags of pot in the Brownsville neighborhood in November. It says the officer observed the man on the sidewalk in front of a bodega “in possession of a quantity of marihuana which was open to public view and which informant recovered from defendant’s pants pocket.” Saunders wonders if the man had “transparent pants.”
Assciated Press, "A Little Pot Is Trouble In
NYC: 50k Busts A Year" by Colleen Long, November 5, 2011
(over a hundred papers across the
US carried this AP story)
There are more arrests for
low-level pot possession in New York City — about 50,000 a year — than any
other crime, accounting for about one of every seven cases that turn up in
criminal courts.... Critics say the deluge has been driven in part by the
New York Police Department's strategy of stopping people and frisking
[them].... More than a half a million people, mostly black and Hispanic men,
were stopped last year — unfair targets, critics say.
New York Times Editorial, "Trouble With Marijuana Arrests," September 26, 2011
Commissioner
Raymond Kelly of the New York Police Department came forth with too little,
too late when he issued a memo directing officers not to arrest people
caught with small amounts of marijuana unless the drug is in plain public
view. A 1977 law decriminalized minor possession, yet tens of thousands are
arrested every year. In 2010, more than 50,000 people were arrested for possession of marijuana; a vast majority of them were racial minorities and male. Civil rights lawyers say that many of them were stopped as part of the Police Department’s broad stop-and-frisk practice and were arrested after officers told them to empty their pockets, which brought the drugs into open view....
Young African-Americans and Hispanics, who are disproportionately singled-out in street stops, make up a high percentage of people arrested for marijuana possession — despite federal data showing that whites are more likely to consume marijuana. This policing practice has damaged young lives and deserves deeper scrutiny by federal and state monitors.
The prospect that "young men of color, who are hyper-policed in this city" are actually walking around in large groups smoking pot in open view is absurd. So is the notion that poor black males smoke pot more than richer, paler men and women. But still, they get disproportionately arrested because, under Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the NYPD uses controversial UF-250s—"stop-and-frisks"—on them at a record-setting pace.
"I'm a police officer, I come up to you," [Cassandra] Frederique explains as if she were a cop approaching a young man in East New York. "'What are you doing? What's in your pockets? Pull it out.' Once you pull it out, it becomes 'marijuana in plain view.' And that's when they arrest you."
"Smoke and Horrors," column by Charles M. Blow, New York Times, Oct 22, 2010
The war on drugs in this country has become a war focused on marijuana, one being waged primarily against minorities and promoted, fueled and financed primarily by Democratic politicians.... This is outrageous and immoral and the Democrat’s complicity is unconscionable, particularly for a party that likes to promote its social justice bona fides. No one knows all the repercussions of legalizing marijuana, but it is clear that criminalizing it has made it a life-ruining racial weapon. When will politicians have the courage to stand up, acknowledge this fact and stop allowing young minority men to be collateral damage.
NYC August. Photo: Ken Stein @ flickr
"Escape from New York" column by Charles M. Blow, New York Times, March 18, 2011
The New York Police Department under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made more of these minor drug arrests than under his previous three predecessors combined. These targeting tactics mean that blacks are arrested for minor drug possession at seven times the rate of whites although on national surveys whites consistently say that they use marijuana more than blacks or Hispanics.
"Drug Bust" column by Charles M. Blow, New York Times, June 10, 2011
The Drug War: An effort meant to save us from a form of moral decay became its own insidious brand of moral perversion — turning people who should have been patients into prisoners, criminalizing victimless behavior, targeting those whose first offense was entering the world wrapped in the wrong skin. It feeds our achingly contradictory tendency toward prudery and our overwhelming thirst for punishment.
"Side Effects of Arrests for Marijuana" By Jim Dwyer, New York Times, June 16, 2011
On average last year, someone was arrested
every 10 minutes in
"A Call To Shift Policy on Marijuana" By Jim Dwyer, New York Times, June 14, 2011
More people are arrested in
"A Smell of Pot and Privilege in the City" By Jim Dwyer, New York Times, July 21, 2010
No city in the
world arrests more of its citizens for using pot than
Brooklyn’s 73rd Precinct (Ocean Hill - Brownsville) has the second highest highest marijuana possession arrest rate in NYC / Photo: Todd Heisler, The New York Times
WNYC, "Alleged Illegal Searches by NYPD May Be Increasing Marijuana Arrests." by Ailsa Chang. April 26, 2011 (excellent 10 minute radio show plus text)
An investigation by WNYC suggests that some police officers may be violating people’s constitutional rights when they are making marijuana arrests. Current and former cops, defense lawyers and more than a dozen men arrested for the lowest-level marijuana possession say illegal searches take place during stop-and-frisks, which are street encounters carried out overwhelmingly on blacks and Latinos.
[Ailsa Chang won a prestigious
DuPont Award for radio and television news for this
two-part story.]
WNYC, "Alleged Illegal Searches By NYPD Rarely Challenged in Marijuana Cases." Ailsa Chang. April 27, 2011 (excellent 8 minutes radio show plus text)
More than a dozen men who were arrested in these precincts for misdemeanor marijuana possession told WNYC the police recovered marijuana on them through illegal searches. None of them challenged these allegedly illegal searches in court.
New York Times, California Blacks Split over Pot Arrests - Jesse McKinley, July 19, 2010
This month, the Drug Policy Alliance — a New
York group that is supporting Proposition 19 — released a study showing that
blacks were arrested for possession at far higher rates than whites in
California’s 25 largest counties, often two or three times higher. In those
25 counties, blacks make up 7 percent of the population but accounted for 20
percent of the marijuana possession arrests; in Los Angeles County, which
accounts for about a quarter of the state’s population, blacks were arrested
for marijuana possession at three times the rate of whites.
Last year, black New Yorkers were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession and no more serious crime. Latinos were four times more likely. In 2008, the police made more pot arrests “than in the 12 years of Mayor Koch, plus the four years of Mayor Dinkins, plus the first two years of Mayor Giuliani,” Mr. Levine wrote. “In other words, in one year, 2008, Bloomberg made more pot arrests than in 18 years of Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani combined.”
Photo: Horacio Salinas, NY Magazine
"The Splitting Image of Pot" by Marc Jacobson, New York Magazine, Sept 21, 2009 On the one hand, marijuana is practically legal - more mainstream, accessorized, and taken for granted than ever before. On the other, kids are getting busted in the city in record numbers. Guess which kids.
AM New York, "High Crimes" by Jason Fink, Sept 14, 2009 With pot as popular as ever, cops are busting NYers at record levels.
An excerpt from City Limits Magazine's excellent whole issue on 40 years of the drug war on NY City.
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**** All links and Articles About Police Commissioner Kelly's September 2011 Order To The NYPD Are Now At The Bottom Of This Page:
On September 23, 2011, Ailsa Chang at WNYC broke the news that NYPD Commissioner Kelly had issued a written order regarding police procedures for arresting people found possessing marijuana. Every news outlet in New York and many national media subsequently covered the story. In his order to the NYPD, Kelly in effect admitted that police officers were in fact violating New York State law: they were arresting people who had marijuana in a pocket or possessions but not "open for public view." Kelly said police should not do that.
Kelly's oder also directly addressed what police officers should do after they had requested, "directed" or "compelled" people to empty their pockets and possessions and found some marijuana. Kelly's order said that after requesting or compelling people to empty their pockets, police should not arrest those who possessed less than 26 grams (7/8th of an ounce) of marijuana, but should instead write a court appearance summons.
Kelly's order was praised by many commentators including the editorial boards of the New York Times and the New York Daily News. A rally at One Police Plaza, with City Council and State Legistlature members, sincerely praised the NYPD for agreeing to obey the law. Many hoped that Kelly's order would produce a serious decline in the number of marijuana arrests, or even an end to the NYPD's marijuana possession arrest crusade. That did not happen.
By December, data from the New York State Office of Criminal Justice Services indicated only a small drop in arrests following Kelly's order. In February 2012 New York State released the official arrest numbers for 2011 which showed that the NYPD had made MORE marijuana possession arrests in 2011 than in 2010, and more than in over a decade: 50,684 arrests for marijuana possession. In March 2012, the Bronx Defenders reported that a study they conducted with a prominent law firm found that at least 40% of the people arrested for marijuana possession had been illegally stopped or searched. And that such illegal arrests had increased since Kelly's order.
At the time of Kelly's order a "breaking news" section was created at Marijuana-Arrests.Com. It is below as kind of historical artifact of a moment of false but sweet hopefulness about the NYPD's reducing and eliminating these expensive, pointless, and life-damaging arrests.
Seven months later it is clear that Kelly's order changed nothing. Not one officer has ever been charged, punished, or even reprimanded for arresting people for marijuana found in a pocket, purse or backpack, or for illegally searching people by reaching into their pockets and possessions. In a police department that has repeatedly insisted that it believes strongly in "sending a message," the non-punishment of any kind for illegal marijuana arrests sends a clear message indeed.
And the marijuana possession arrests – legal, quasi-legal, and flat-out unconstitutional – continue.
BREAKING NEWS
NYPD COMMISSIONER TELLS NYPD TO STOP IMPROPER ARRESTS
MARIJUANA ARRESTS IN 2011 HIT A TEN YEAR HIGH (graphs)
Source: WNYC with Highcharts / Drawn by John Keefe ___________________________________________________
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