April 30, 2008
NYCLU Reports NYC's Pot Arrests Up "Tenfold"
Chances are you probably smoke pot, you are probably smoking it right now...at least according to the latest reports, which say that "the number of people arrested for small amounts of marijuana in New York City has increased tenfold in the past decade."
More people get arrested for misdemeanor pot possession in our city than in any other U.S. city (the figure comes to about 97 arrests per day). The New York Civil Liberties Union released the report this week, which they based on government stats, interviews with those arrested for holding pot, their lawyers, and law enforcement officials.
The report said the stop-and-frisk policy allows the police to make misdemeanor arrests, which produce higher crime-fighting statistics, rather than simply write them up as violations, which carry penalties similar to traffic infractions.That isn't all, the reports are also showing that the NYPD are weeding out Blacks and Latinos, with more than half those arrested being black, and 31% being Hispanic.“The penalty for having seven-eighths of an ounce of marijuana or less in your pocket is the same as that for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk,” said an author of the report, Prof. Harry G. Levine, a sociologist at Queens College.
But in fact, instead of a $100 fine and a violation charge, police are coaxing people to bring the marijuana into public view by requesting that they hand over anything they are “not supposed to have,” the report says. It then becomes “burning or open to public view” and therefore a misdemeanor.
A NYPD spokesperson said the system the NYCLU used to cull its numbers is flawed, but many are still taking note, especially since the NYPD itself is criticized for pressuring people into searches and stop-and-frisks (police commish Kelly denies using racial profiling). The NYPD spokesperson denies the report all-together, calling the NYCLU's numbers "absurdly inflated".
The NYPD claims there were only 8,770 marijuana violations during the years 1997 to 2006. But the NYCLU is standing firm by their report, saying that in those years "205,000 blacks, 122,000 Latinos and 59,000 whites for possessing small amounts of marijuana."
Finally, the report urges policymakers to make some changes:
- Hold public hearings and thoroughly examine the costs, consequences, and racial, gender, age and class disparities of the NYPD’s marijuana arrest practices.
- Ensure that law enforcement of marijuana offenses is consistent with the intent of New York State law.
- Substantially increase the pay scale of police officers to reduce the need for overtime.
- Require the NYPD to provide the City Council and state detailed, accurate and timely data on its arrests, citations and other practices, and make that information public.
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Or just remove the stop-and-frisk policy because it violates the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.
New York's finest fightin the good fight. I feel so much safer now.
Oh I feel so safe.
I had a pal busted for this, spent 48 hours in jail.
Even more alarming is what this is costing taxpayers. Between overtime for cops who are processing arrests at the end of their shifts, to court costs, to housing the offenders (even for a couple of days), it all adds up and it all comes out of our pockets.
If they just wrote out a summons for a violation and a fine, it would cost taxpayers far less AND make the city some money.
What if I smoke and don't inhale, is the fine still the same?
I think the overtime pay angle is what makes it so popular with the NYPD.
I actually don't mind. I wish that they would hand out some more tickets for bikes on the sidewalk too.
#6 - and jaywalking tickets too - that would be a good use of our tax dollars!
*not*
I got arrested for this stupid shit. It was a waste of time and taxpayer money. I went to court and everything was dismissed -- there wasn't even a small fine to cover court costs. Great job, NYPD!
Total waste of money to taxpayers. They could easily write 10 tickets in the time that they bring one person in for it.
busting people for riding bikes on the sidewalks makes sense. you could hit somebody very easily. but pot???
'bike on the sidewalk' seriously is this a problem? I was hit by a cab going through a red light, and it took two surgeries to fix my broken hand. Cars ignoring red lights is a problem, bikes on the sidewalk is a rare nuisance, at best.
It works out in tax dollars because potheads are just wasting money and time which is money. Now, if we could only reign in the liquor lobby and start arresting people for drinking, think of the labor hours that we'd be able to save and think of the jobs created in law enforcement.
Here's an interesting question: the arrest rate has gone up, but what about the conviction rate?
In other words: how many of these charges are being dropped or thrown out the moment they hit the courts and the judges recognize the case for the waste of time that it is?
I'm betting that commentor #8's experience is typical, and that this is even worse a waste of the city's money than it looks like on first blush.
Lessons to be learned:
- If you're holding something never consent to a search, either of your car, your home or your person. That doesn't mean you should resist, just don't give your consent.
- Do not put yourself in jail by voluntarily handing over anything. Cops don't give brownie points if you do their job for them.
- Before they frisk you they'll ask whether you have anything illegal or anything that might stick them during the search. Tell them that you have nothing on you that will cause them any harm (assuming that's true -- if you have a knife or a needle then say so because if you let them search and they're injured you'll be charged for that).
You mean one can refuse a "stop and frisk"? isn't a stop and frisk a mandatory search, how can one refuse it?
In my youth, we were taught to "Play it to a bust"... in other words: NEVER tell the police that you're carrying. Do not do the cops job for them, especially when it's your freedom at stake! They will try to bluff you, even lie outright to you.
Play it to a bust.
ghoulliani & gloomberg pig cpolice tactics need to be stopped, every knows someone who has a delivery service #, this is a class divide issue.
no pun intended, they nickel & diming those people into arrests
more arrests = more paperwork = more paperwork = more overtime
pigs are feeding into the criminal injustice system.
why would they actually have to arrest small time buyers of weed when if these mopes are dumb enough to incriminate themselves by falling for the 'just hand over the weed and ill let you go' trick it wouldnt be hard for cops to close down the drug dealing location...that doesnt feed the pig system thats why.
They'll ask for your consent first and you can say no. If they don't ask you can still say that you don't consent. That doesn't mean they still won't search you but it sure preserves a lot of legal options for you down the road.
thanks...
um will this be the plot of legally blonde 3?
or um maybe another legal courtroom drama type thing where the plunky young person with ideals represents himself and fights the system and takes it all the way to the supreme court...
what legal options are you talking about?
when the system has you there are really no options, do you think you can blurt out in court no your honor judge guy i didnt consent to let him search me for weed?
well maybe you can hire a laywer who can take on a case,
but in general these things are too petty on the defendant's side to even bother, unless of course your daddy's little girl and daddy has a fat wallet and a lawyer on retainer anyway...but hey thats what the system is for
to feed itself and further its existence...
doesnt that seem unfair? does to me!
since most minorities are already primed and prepped for the prison they call life in ameriKKKa, so copping a plea is the most expedient way to get it over with.
it games the system, the system games itself,
when will the riots start?! hurry i want to see landlords, brokers, cops, telemarketers, used car salesmen & stroller moms hanging from lightposts...
It is indeed a waste of police resources, but the last thing we need is to legalize pot.
Americans don't know the meaning of the term MODERATION. We'd stone ourselves stupid like we drink ourselves numb now.
Keeping it illegal keeps it under control. They should just lighten the penalties.
If you want to get as high as a kite for very little dough, go to Jamaica. You WILL get fucked up!
They should arrest people for dressing like shit. Taxpayer's money well spent.
Help me - I can't escape Ira Glass! I'm having nightmares.
Legally Blonde 3. That's actually pretty funny.
If I get busted I won't be blurting out shit to the judge, my lawyer will be speaking for me and it won't be Reese Witherspoon either. I won't on my own be making any statements to the police and I won't be making any deals with the DA so I can spend a few less hours in lockup. If you think copping to a possession charge is petty or the expedient thing to do then go ahead and do it. But I would lose my job and have a hard time finding a new one, and every time I filled out any form for the rest of my life I would always have to divulge the details of my drug arrest. No thanks.
a total waste of time all around. the $ the state/feds could make from a moderate tax on legal pot would go a long way to fund alternate sources of energy for example, which is where everybody should be gearing their thinking. On the state level, add to that the waste of $ from incarcerating people for the outdated, draconian (and ineffective) Rocky drug laws...well, you get the idea.
"Americans don't know the meaning of the term MODERATION."
Although true, it's not the government's job to legislate that. If I wanted to live in a society where the government controls all, robbing me of any personal responsibility, I would move to N. Korea where they are not allowed to own cell phones and are sometimes commanded to shit on their lawns to help it grow.
Next time you smell weed on the street, look around and see who's smoking it. Eight times out of ten, it will be an African-American male. I've seen like one white dude smoking a joint on the street, and I have never seen an Asian person smoking weed on the street, ever.
Is it beyond comprehension that maybe—just maybe—the racial disparities in arrests just might simply be because different races/cultures do different things at different rates? I mean, I know that's not "politically correct," but it should be apparent to anyone with eyes.
DNA, just walk around the lower east side on a warm weekend. You'll see plenty of white people smoking pot on the street.
What's the big crime in smoking pot if you're not operating machinery or a car, anyway? You just get the munchies, laugh at dumb jokes, and think those sucky bands that play all over the Lower East Side are actually good.
id rather be surrounded by 30000 blatinos smoking blunts than just 30 drunk white frat boys in the LES on a warm weekend.
jaja007, I don't doubt that white people smoke weed in public, I'm just saying it's not nearly as prevalent (and like I said, seeing Asians doing so is even rarer). Point being, the arrest rates seem to pretty much accurately reflect what I've seen firsthand.
ihateallbrokers, I agree with you completely.
That's because more city cops are assigned to "high-crime" areas, most of which are disproportionately black or Latino, Levine says. The cops are then pushed to meet Kelly's "productivity goals," which the police union's lawyers contend in pending lawsuits are actually "illegal quotas" for arrests and stop-and-frisks.
"The police catch so many more of one kind of fish because they are mostly searching in certain waters," Levine says.
Marijuana pinches are generally easy and safe, and they provide overtime while giving the appearance of productivity, he says. And who's easier to arrest: young and poor black and Latino men, who Levine says "usually lack the political and social connections that might make the arrests troublesome or embarrassing for the police," or white college kids whose parents can probably afford lawyers who make a living picking apart weak cases?
Whether as a byproduct or by design, these mass pot arrests have enabled the NYPD to add thousands of new names, photographs, and fingerprints to their criminal-record databases. Levine's study found that 60 percent of those arrested on misdemeanor pot charges since 1997 didn't have prior criminal records.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0818,weeding-out-blacks-and-latinos,427158,2.html
Levine argues that this costly enforcement strategy ultimately causes only more problems by "socializing" young blacks and Latinos to the jail culture and making a life of crime more likely, because many places where these young men might otherwise find employment don't hire those with criminal records.