Opinion: Just Say No to the Roll-back of Criminal Justice Reforms

There are 2.2 million people in this country locked away in local, state, and federal cages. Meanwhile, 6.7 million people across the country are under the surveillance and control of correctional departments. In New York, Black New Yorkers make up 18 percent of the statewide population but nearly half of the population in prison. These outcomes are the result of deeply damaging policies. And policies are not created and enacted out of thin air.

The pre-trial laws that New York had until this year, “Broken Windows” policing, Stop and Frisk, mandatory minimum sentencing, drug courts, gang databases, and collaboration with ICE all have a clear origin. Legislators, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials, drafted, funded, and implemented policies that have torn apart, terrorized, extracted resources from, disenfranchised, and trampled on the rights of Black and Brown communities.

The tactics being employed to amend and roll back newly enacted changes to New York State’s bail laws are the same tactics used for decades to entrench racially discriminatory policies. NYPD Police Commissioner Shea, police union officials, District Attorneys, prosecutors, and Mayor de Blasio have all used racist fear-mongering or outright lies, correlating the new pre-trial laws to increases in crime data, without evidence, to pressure state legislators to change laws less than three months old. Despite our country still accounting for nearly a quarter of the world’s incarcerated population, certain elected officials and officials running state and city public safety agencies still haven’t quenched their appetite for feeding jails and prisons with Black and Brown bodies. Jails, prisons, and detention centers simply do not make our communities safer.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

Black and Latino communities and grassroots organizations in New York, led by people directly impacted by the criminal legal system organized, fought, and struggled to pass policies designed to root out the racialized targeting of our communities and free our community members from cages. As the population of people locked away has decreased, our communities have not seen a rise in crime. That’s because prisons and detention centers perpetuate violence and punishment, but are ineffective at addressing the root causes of crime and harm. Organizers and activists from communities of color are redefining public safety by dismantling policies and practices rooted in criminalizing Blackness and punishing poverty. Instead, we are creating and advancing approaches to divest from police and prisons and investing in robust social services, housing, and mental health supports.

Rolling back New York’s bail reforms now, by giving judges and prosecutors the ability to detain people pre-trial, based on their interpretation of “dangerousness,” isn’t grounded in public safety. It is grounded in maintaining a criminal legal system to control and oppress Black and Brown communities. Judges and prosecutors have been driving racial disparities across the criminal legal system since its existence. Neither are computer algorithms, fed with data from a biased system, going to address racial inequities. The Senate’s newest proposal, supposedly created to eliminate cash bail, will ensure more Black and Latino New Yorkers are detained before trial without the possibility of coming home to their families.

To be Black in New York is to be Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco. It is to know everyday that the state prioritizes the power to snatch you from your community and take your life over the power to provide you with the care we all deserve. Elected officials committed to creating a fair and just New York for all New Yorkers. Elected officials who have sworn there will be no more Kalief Browders or Eric Garners have a choice. Bend to law enforcement officials grasping to hold onto mass criminalization and incarceration, or stand up for communities fighting to reprioritize and reallocate funding and resources for the social services our communities need to thrive.

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Kesi Foster is the Co-Director of the Youth Power Project at Make the Road New York. On Twitter: @BemKesi @MaketheRoadNY

Opinion: An Open Letter on Policing the Subway

Pamela Drew

NYPD officers at the Union Square station.

As we enter the New Year, we, the collective body of artists and cultural workers of The Laundromat Project’s alumni and extended communities, would like to address the MTA and the NYPD from a place of deep commitment to the people of New York City.

We direct our appeal — co-signed here by a community of supporters — to Governor Andrew Cuomo; Mayor Bill de Blasio; Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea; MTA Chairman Patrick Foye; and District Attorneys Vance, Gonzalez, Clark, Katz, and McMahon.

The Laundromat Project (The LP) is an internationally recognized organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities.

Simply put, we are greatly disappointed and disturbed by the recent surge in police presence and aggression in the subway system as a solution to the MTA’s financial challenges. 

As residents of New York, artists, and members of The LP community, we are intimately aware of and concerned for the well-being of its most vulnerable citizens, including teenagers of color, vendors of color, and low-income New Yorkers, many of whom are being disproportionately targeted by the unnecessary uptick in policing of the MTA system.

We ourselves are from these segments of the population, and see them in our families and classrooms. Our proximity to vulnerable community groups alerts us to the need for substantive change to the social infrastructure of our city—rather than strategies such as fare evasion policing which do more to punish than support those who are under the most strain.

Following former Mayor Bloomberg’s recent public apology about the enforcement of stop-and-frisk policies under his administration, it is hard to believe that, yet again, policing within public spaces is directly targeting perceived people of color and immigrants.

Further, we highlight and admonish the absurdity of the recent vote to devote $222,000,000 in public taxpayer dollars into the hiring of new NYPD officers to provide fare evasion enforcement for the MTA, which collects billions of dollars in revenue annually and defines itself as “public benefit institution.” We find the cost of maintaining these officers particularly disturbing given that the MTA reports less than $222,000,000 annual revenue loss through fare evasion. 

Creating financial barriers through such ongoing policies as fare increases for hardworking, low-income New Yorkers who contribute to the economic, cultural, and social fabric of our city is not for the public’s benefit. Tasing and tackling young people for minor infractions such as fare evasion is not for the public’s benefit. Brandishing guns in transit stations in order to collect a missing $2.75 is not for the public’s benefit. These policies are extreme by any estimation and especially inappropriate when considered in context with the chronically underperforming public transit system that is less and less able to provide reliable service to New Yorkers. 

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

The increased police presence in the MTA points to a corresponding rise in surveillance of low-income people of color throughout the city. We are particularly disappointed to see a rise in semi-militaristic policing put in place by our state and local Democratic leaders, many of whom ran on platforms aimed at increasing social equity. We are aware of the rise in conservative, often xenophobic policies throughout the world, but will not stand for a corresponding policy shift in our city.

We point to the recent uprising in Chile: a direct response to their transit system’s untenable fare increase and a threat to citizens’ daily lives that resulted in a serious challenge to their government. The parallels are clear, and position New York City government’s current policies—both with regards to increased police presence, and to impending fare increases that bear no corresponding increase in wages—on the wrong side of just and equitable governance that could ensure, at the very least, a utilitarian functionality in our city. 

We stand with the communities being targeted by these policies. As artists, activists, and cultural workers, our responsibility is to imagine and help manifest new worlds. We accept this task gladly and thus, call for the removal of the increased NYPD presence in the MTA.

We call for expanded policies that provide reliable, affordable access to public transportation for low- and middle-income New Yorkers. We call for strategies that decriminalize, rather than target, poverty. We call for the MTA and NYPD to invest in additional  anti-racist and implicit bias training by working with community-attuned organizations such as the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and/or the Center for Racial Justice in Education.

We call for New York City to stand up in support of its incredible diversity across all measures—race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, class, disability, and immigration status—to maintain a transit system that is safe and accessible for all.

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Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier are affiliated with The Black School. Chloë Bass is an artist. Kemi Ilesanmi and Emma Colón represent The Laundromat Project.

The post Opinion: An Open Letter on Policing the Subway appeared first on City Limits.

Opinion: An Open Letter on Policing the Subway

Pamela Drew

NYPD officers at the Union Square station.

As we enter the New Year, we, the collective body of artists and cultural workers of The Laundromat Project’s alumni and extended communities, would like to address the MTA and the NYPD from a place of deep commitment to the people of New York City.

We direct our appeal — co-signed here by a community of supporters — to Governor Andrew Cuomo; Mayor Bill de Blasio; Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea; MTA Chairman Patrick Foye; and District Attorneys Vance, Gonzalez, Clark, Katz, and McMahon.

The Laundromat Project (The LP) is an internationally recognized organization that advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities.

Simply put, we are greatly disappointed and disturbed by the recent surge in police presence and aggression in the subway system as a solution to the MTA’s financial challenges. 

As residents of New York, artists, and members of The LP community, we are intimately aware of and concerned for the well-being of its most vulnerable citizens, including teenagers of color, vendors of color, and low-income New Yorkers, many of whom are being disproportionately targeted by the unnecessary uptick in policing of the MTA system.

We ourselves are from these segments of the population, and see them in our families and classrooms. Our proximity to vulnerable community groups alerts us to the need for substantive change to the social infrastructure of our city—rather than strategies such as fare evasion policing which do more to punish than support those who are under the most strain.

Following former Mayor Bloomberg’s recent public apology about the enforcement of stop-and-frisk policies under his administration, it is hard to believe that, yet again, policing within public spaces is directly targeting perceived people of color and immigrants.

Further, we highlight and admonish the absurdity of the recent vote to devote $222,000,000 in public taxpayer dollars into the hiring of new NYPD officers to provide fare evasion enforcement for the MTA, which collects billions of dollars in revenue annually and defines itself as “public benefit institution.” We find the cost of maintaining these officers particularly disturbing given that the MTA reports less than $222,000,000 annual revenue loss through fare evasion. 

Creating financial barriers through such ongoing policies as fare increases for hardworking, low-income New Yorkers who contribute to the economic, cultural, and social fabric of our city is not for the public’s benefit. Tasing and tackling young people for minor infractions such as fare evasion is not for the public’s benefit. Brandishing guns in transit stations in order to collect a missing $2.75 is not for the public’s benefit. These policies are extreme by any estimation and especially inappropriate when considered in context with the chronically underperforming public transit system that is less and less able to provide reliable service to New Yorkers. 

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

The increased police presence in the MTA points to a corresponding rise in surveillance of low-income people of color throughout the city. We are particularly disappointed to see a rise in semi-militaristic policing put in place by our state and local Democratic leaders, many of whom ran on platforms aimed at increasing social equity. We are aware of the rise in conservative, often xenophobic policies throughout the world, but will not stand for a corresponding policy shift in our city.

We point to the recent uprising in Chile: a direct response to their transit system’s untenable fare increase and a threat to citizens’ daily lives that resulted in a serious challenge to their government. The parallels are clear, and position New York City government’s current policies—both with regards to increased police presence, and to impending fare increases that bear no corresponding increase in wages—on the wrong side of just and equitable governance that could ensure, at the very least, a utilitarian functionality in our city. 

We stand with the communities being targeted by these policies. As artists, activists, and cultural workers, our responsibility is to imagine and help manifest new worlds. We accept this task gladly and thus, call for the removal of the increased NYPD presence in the MTA.

We call for expanded policies that provide reliable, affordable access to public transportation for low- and middle-income New Yorkers. We call for strategies that decriminalize, rather than target, poverty. We call for the MTA and NYPD to invest in additional  anti-racist and implicit bias training by working with community-attuned organizations such as the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and/or the Center for Racial Justice in Education.

We call for New York City to stand up in support of its incredible diversity across all measures—race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, class, disability, and immigration status—to maintain a transit system that is safe and accessible for all.

---

Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier are affiliated with The Black School. Chloë Bass is an artist. Kemi Ilesanmi and Emma Colón represent The Laundromat Project.

The post Opinion: An Open Letter on Policing the Subway appeared first on City Limits.

Opinion: In Bushwick, the City Squashed Democracy, Again

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Mayor Bill de Blasio delivers his seventh State of the City address at the American Museum of Natural History on Thursday, February 6, 2020.

Mayor Bill de Blasio gave this year’s State of the City address and released a blueprint to, what he called, “Save Our City.” Yet there is a pattern of failure within the de Blasio administration to meaningfully engage with communities striving to do just that, especially in neighborhoods targeted for rezoning efforts. In December, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge brought an Inwood rezoning plan to a halt when the city failed to take a “hard look” at how regulating land use would impact the neighborhood. 

The city continues to set a precedent of callous disregard for community concerns. In a move insulting to community leaders and people who call Bushwick home, the Mayor’s Office declined to even study the impacts of the Bushwick Community Plan— a collaborative rezoning plan of local residents, community groups, elected officials and city agencies six years in the making.

The city made progress by working in tandem with the community to build out the plan but fell short of flipping the script on how they deal with community-based proposals. Instead, they pulled the rug out from under the hundreds of volunteers who participated in establishing a new model of community-led planning by failing to take even the first step in studying the plan.

Mayor de Blasio’s administration has an opportunity to alter a historical narrative of snubbing community priorities and reclaim the privilege of representing the people. Study the comprehensive plan put forth by Bushwick community members, acknowledge the broader priorities that the city needs to ensure sustainable growth, and consider how the people’s ideas will complement and strengthen their own plan.

Deputy Mayor Vicki Been mischaracterized the Bushwick Community Plan’s approach as “fundamentally a downzoning.” To be sure, the plan does advocate for restricting height on residential streets to preserve Bushwick’s historic character. But it also uses the city’s own framework to call for the building of thousands of much-needed new affordable apartments.

In a letter sent to City Hall this week, several members of the Brooklyn Community Plan steering committee deplored the city’s handling of their proposal.

In a neighborhood where the median household income in 2017 was $51,622—about 17 percent less than the citywide median, and the poverty rate was 27 percent, compared to 18 percent citywide, gentrification has arrived in a fury. As of November 2019, the median asking rent for Bushwick was $2,750/month, and 51 percent of Bushwick residents are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. 

As heads of RiseBoro Community Partnership and the Brooklyn Community Board 4, two of the 11 local organizations who helped craft the community plan’s recommendations, it is evident that the proposal is far more complex and comprehensive than one solely focused on zoning. It is aimed at protecting and preserving a neighborhood in the throes of gentrification, disruption and displacement. The community-driven proposal is a thoughtful look at all the resources Bushwick needs to thrive now and in the future, including transportation infrastructure, open space, economic development, and community services.

Characterizing the plan as “essentially a downzoning” is disingenuous and ignores the comprehensive needs of our community. And disagreeing with one aspect of the plan does not disqualify the rest to be, at the very least, studied and considered. 

There are broader priorities to ensure sustainable growth in Bushwick. The city needs to adjust their laser focus on rezoning to other infrastructure and investments the community says are needed to help the neighborhood to keep up with the growth.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

Bushwick has half the access to parks and open space as compared to the rest of New Yorkers. It has 12 historic landmarks but no historic district to protect them and one of the lowest grocery store access rates among all NYC neighborhoods. As gentrification barrels forward, the community plan addresses zoning, plus these grievances and others. Communities deserve a basic level of self determination in how their neighborhoods evolve over time.

We are not asking the city to take this proposal and implement it untouched. Our ask is merely that they study it as an option. The hundreds of residents and countless organizations who worked for years on developing the Bushwick Community Plan deserve to be heard. 

If this administration doesn’t start to listen to the voice and will of local communities like Bushwick, their plans to rezone Gowanus and Southern Boulevard in the Bronx will be dead on arrival. Their legacy of disregarding democracy and bulldozing local communities will not change. It is time the de Blasio administration stands by their progressive principles and uplifts the voice of the people.

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Scott Short is the CEO of RiseBoro Community Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to holistic community revitalization in New York City. Robert Camacho is the chairperson of Brooklyn Community Board 4.

The post Opinion: In Bushwick, the City Squashed Democracy, Again appeared first on City Limits.

Opinion: In Bushwick, the City Squashed Democracy, Again

Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

Mayor Bill de Blasio delivers his seventh State of the City address at the American Museum of Natural History on Thursday, February 6, 2020.

Mayor Bill de Blasio gave this year’s State of the City address and released a blueprint to, what he called, “Save Our City.” Yet there is a pattern of failure within the de Blasio administration to meaningfully engage with communities striving to do just that, especially in neighborhoods targeted for rezoning efforts. In December, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge brought an Inwood rezoning plan to a halt when the city failed to take a “hard look” at how regulating land use would impact the neighborhood. 

The city continues to set a precedent of callous disregard for community concerns. In a move insulting to community leaders and people who call Bushwick home, the Mayor’s Office declined to even study the impacts of the Bushwick Community Plan— a collaborative rezoning plan of local residents, community groups, elected officials and city agencies six years in the making.

The city made progress by working in tandem with the community to build out the plan but fell short of flipping the script on how they deal with community-based proposals. Instead, they pulled the rug out from under the hundreds of volunteers who participated in establishing a new model of community-led planning by failing to take even the first step in studying the plan.

Mayor de Blasio’s administration has an opportunity to alter a historical narrative of snubbing community priorities and reclaim the privilege of representing the people. Study the comprehensive plan put forth by Bushwick community members, acknowledge the broader priorities that the city needs to ensure sustainable growth, and consider how the people’s ideas will complement and strengthen their own plan.

Deputy Mayor Vicki Been mischaracterized the Bushwick Community Plan’s approach as “fundamentally a downzoning.” To be sure, the plan does advocate for restricting height on residential streets to preserve Bushwick’s historic character. But it also uses the city’s own framework to call for the building of thousands of much-needed new affordable apartments.

In a letter sent to City Hall this week, several members of the Brooklyn Community Plan steering committee deplored the city’s handling of their proposal.

In a neighborhood where the median household income in 2017 was $51,622—about 17 percent less than the citywide median, and the poverty rate was 27 percent, compared to 18 percent citywide, gentrification has arrived in a fury. As of November 2019, the median asking rent for Bushwick was $2,750/month, and 51 percent of Bushwick residents are paying more than 30 percent of their income on rent. 

As heads of RiseBoro Community Partnership and the Brooklyn Community Board 4, two of the 11 local organizations who helped craft the community plan’s recommendations, it is evident that the proposal is far more complex and comprehensive than one solely focused on zoning. It is aimed at protecting and preserving a neighborhood in the throes of gentrification, disruption and displacement. The community-driven proposal is a thoughtful look at all the resources Bushwick needs to thrive now and in the future, including transportation infrastructure, open space, economic development, and community services.

Characterizing the plan as “essentially a downzoning” is disingenuous and ignores the comprehensive needs of our community. And disagreeing with one aspect of the plan does not disqualify the rest to be, at the very least, studied and considered. 

There are broader priorities to ensure sustainable growth in Bushwick. The city needs to adjust their laser focus on rezoning to other infrastructure and investments the community says are needed to help the neighborhood to keep up with the growth.

CityViews are readers’ opinions, not those of City Limits. Add your voice today!

Bushwick has half the access to parks and open space as compared to the rest of New Yorkers. It has 12 historic landmarks but no historic district to protect them and one of the lowest grocery store access rates among all NYC neighborhoods. As gentrification barrels forward, the community plan addresses zoning, plus these grievances and others. Communities deserve a basic level of self determination in how their neighborhoods evolve over time.

We are not asking the city to take this proposal and implement it untouched. Our ask is merely that they study it as an option. The hundreds of residents and countless organizations who worked for years on developing the Bushwick Community Plan deserve to be heard. 

If this administration doesn’t start to listen to the voice and will of local communities like Bushwick, their plans to rezone Gowanus and Southern Boulevard in the Bronx will be dead on arrival. Their legacy of disregarding democracy and bulldozing local communities will not change. It is time the de Blasio administration stands by their progressive principles and uplifts the voice of the people.

---

Scott Short is the CEO of RiseBoro Community Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to holistic community revitalization in New York City. Robert Camacho is the chairperson of Brooklyn Community Board 4.

The post Opinion: In Bushwick, the City Squashed Democracy, Again appeared first on City Limits.