New York City Is Set to Adopt New Approach on Policing Minor Offenses

Big mistake. People who break "Big" laws also break "Little" laws. Hence the Son of Sam is tracked down via a parking ticket for being in front of a hydrant. The Oklahoma City bomber is stopped because of a license plate violation. In a place like NYC, where the population density and cultural diversity cries out for management, easing up on policing of fringe behavior is a sure way to both decrease quality of life and narrow the potential for catching some of the big fish committing small crimes. This is a very bad move that will take a generation to correct.

Well at least the NYC crime rate statistics will go down...!

What I understand is that certain peoples will not be automatically 'enrolled' and forced through what can be a punishing Criminal Injustice System for frivolous reasons.

The Police Department will decriminalize certain offenses,
except for when
the Police Department deems it necessary to make the trivial offense a criminal offense.

Ew.

To that end these are 2 of the bills in the proposed Criminal Justice Reform Act I like:

T2016-4001=Melissa Mark-Viverito wants the criteria used to determine between civil or criminal enforcement.

INT 0662-2015= Mark Levine wants the PD to submit...demographic information regarding the issuance of desk appearance tickets.

Lowering the standard on crime is the way the mayors office lowers crime statics and lowers rents.
Chirlane McCray, mayor de Blasio wife on housing cost in 1977 she stated "This is personal to me because I came to New York City is 1977. The city was strong. The city was inclusive and dynamic and we want the city to stay that way," she said.
It's a win, win as far as the mayors office sees it.

I think the mayor needs to commission a major study to include: a) what types of people are peeing in the street, b) on which city streets does the most urine collect, c) why do these particular people do this and how do they select their spots, d) the environmental effect of pee on the street, and e) next steps to understand the study results including proposed city-designed programs to deter such action, if indeed that is what the study shows. Might as well have some jobs creation to accompany increased street-peeing.

I support the changes as long as tickets are issued and fines are paid, although a $25 fine seems to low. Are parents responsible for paying their children s fines?

Ms. Mark-Viverito says that the system has been rigged against communities of color, yet the largest number of arrests for minor infractions have taken place in those communities. So is Ms. Mark-Viverito saying that the residents of those communities will welcome an increase in the frequency of public urination or littering? That's what she implies.

These are behavioral violations that happen because people either don't know how to behave towards their own communities, or because they are hostile and willfully destructive/abusive. Taking the offender's money doesn't address either problem, but if the money could be funneled into youth programs, it might have some good effect. And if the mayor can find $25 million dollars to build a stable in Central Park, there ought to be a chunk of money somewhere to encourage considerate behavior in the city's humans.

I say bring back the pungent smell of urine, especially in gentrified neighborhoods. Maybe that will finally slow down the explosion of rents in this city.

Back when there was a certain passage in GCT that I dubbed the 'urine hall' and some days would actually even make me physically retch, I was paying about $750 for a 2 bedroom in the East Village. Just sayin'...

What would be even better is if many of these minor offenses resulted in a summons, like a parking ticket, in which the fine can be mailed in. This would avoid a mandatory court appearance, which can result in losing ones job or missing time in school - ridiculous consequences for a minor offense.

Public urination is a sign of impaired behavioral constraint, thus an individual who would "pee in public" is more likely to also engage in other behaviors that border on the criminal.....
There is an extreme difference between public urination and littering; exposing one's genitals in public is a sign of brain dysfunction
If the current administration can't understand this , then, well, when is the next election?

Once you get used to litter-free streets and subways, the absence of the stench of urine and public intoxication, you hate to see these nuisances return. Part of being an engaged citizen means being mindful about where you discard your trash, where you drink your beer and where you decide to urinate. The City Council would do better to stage an education campaign in city schools to make sure young people get the message.
The council speaker asks "“So the question has always been, what can we do in this job to minimize unnecessary interaction with the criminal justice system, so that these young people can really fulfill their potential?” Melissa, please. The answers are all around you. You just don't want to tell people how to behave. Marshmallow politicians like Melissa don't realize that they should be working for their best citizens. Who are these? The New Yorkers who helped look for Avonte Oquendo and Leiby Kletzky, the volunteers of CityMeals on Wheels, the people who clean up their local parks and beaches, and the young professionals who mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters etc. All of these people step in where the government falls short. But they won't do it forever, especially when they see their streets become filthy because the City Council's foolhardy move. This administration is such a disappointment. DeBlasio and the City Council have completely abandoned middle-class New Yorkers.

Great! I see the city that I love and grew up in sliding back to the squalor of the 70s and 80s. Quality of life policing was the best thing ever for that city. I hated the squeegee men. I hated public urination. I hated it all!

If properly handled, this plan will actually improve the situation with respect to what are generally called "quality of life" offenses. Quick example: Over the last year two people I know were issued criminal court summonses - one was for putting a bag of household garbage in a street trash bin, and the other for littering. At the same time I, and others I'm sure, have witnessed cyclists running red lights, ignoring one way signs, riding on sidewalks etc. Which situations are the greater danger to the public? I think the answer is obvious. So that's where you put law enforcement personnel and dollars.

It has been morally unacceptable, for at least the past eight years, to spend so much of the public's money and legislative attention on minor offenses such as these. It is a timeless example of treating the symptoms rather than the disease, namely poverty and homelessness.

Doing so at the behest of the City's growing proportion of gentry, actually moneyed would be a more appropriate moniker, emits the unique and decidedly offensive odor of moral corruption, which is much more pervasive and broadly discernible than the stench of urine. The primary focus of law enforcement should be the elimination of those criminal activities that promote the hoarding of wealth. Fraud, insider trading, targeted deregulation, and creation of trusts are more ancient and notorious crimes.

The pocket change of the City's masters, dispensed strategically, bewitches "public" servants to ignore any stench but the stink of urine. The City literally reeks of corruption, and it is much more offensive than any other emission.

Other, more hospitable cities, actually provide public restroom facilities, conceivably by raising taxes on the rich rather than lowering them at every opportunity. Any civilization that succumbs to two systems of justice--one for the rich and one for the poor--should not be expected to be more livable, but rather to dissolve into a toxic pool of filth in the natural course of events.

I understand the concern with kids getting tangled up in the criminal justice system. But isn't the better approach making sure your kids aren't breaking the law in the first place??? If you don't want to get tangled up in the criminal courts maybe you shouldn't be drinking and playing loud music and disturbing other people in a park??

So a 23-year-old street cop is now going to have to decide if an offense is civil or criminal? Who do you think will get the criminal summons: a white man urinating on Stone Street or a black man urinating on 125th Street? The city is begging for lawsuits here.

So basically we are headed back to the 70's when NYC was an ungovernable, lawless place, where decent people had to put up with all kinds of outrageous behavior from creeps. If they don't show up to criminal court, do you really think they are going to pay a ticket? Get a brain DeBlasio. People will now do what they want, whenever and wherever they want because there is absolutely no consequence. This incompetent cannot get out of office fast enough. We must just hope he doesn't do irreparable damage to the city before he goes. Public places will no longer be usable because an endless array of behaviors will go unpunished. Let the criminals run the city, that sounds like an intelligent way to govern.

what will the warrants squads do now that they can no longer hang around outside the homeless shelters waiting for alcoholics with unpaid public drinking tickets that have turned into warrants

I think what some commenters are missing is the extreme impact these low level offenses can have on a life. Yes, public urination and other crimes included should be discouraged. But when you arrest someone who can't make bail, they have to sit in jail for days, or months, and can't work or go to school. That could lead to them losing their job, missing crucial classes that could lead to them dropping out of school, and having their possessions like a car impounded or stolen. Being arrested is very disruptive to an otherwise productive life. And to be clear, there are tons of productive people who do disruptive things (any one living near a stadium knows how much fans pee everywhere and get drunk in the street). Should you sit in jail for days because you caused people to smell pee for a few hours?

So these laws were biased against "communities of color"? So is the Times suggesting that only "communities of color" and the people who live there are the ones committing these indecencies? And they are indecencies. This administration is allowing decorum, manners and social customs to fall by the wayside to please the lowest element amongst us. We can no longer expect people to be considerate anywhere in NYC unless they choose to and now we can no longer even expect them to be decent. Can't wait until this awful Mayor and his values are out of office.

While this proposal makes sense on one level, I think that on another level, it sends the wrong message. While clearly this is a compromise on the part of the Council, who would have decriminalized these offenses altogether, and despite the fact that cops can still make arrests, it still sends a message to the potential offenders that this type of behaviour is OK. It undercuts efforts by well-meaning, hard working parents who want to keep their kids out of trouble. Do parking tickets keep people from illegally parking? Speeding tickets? Will there be a mandatory arrest for persistent violators of these offenses?

The proposed legislation further enhances the professionalization of the police force. An officer will be allowed to make a reasoned decision as to which avenue of redress will be taken based on the circumstances.
It requires a police force recruited and selected for its maturity, common sense, and wisdom. These are characteristics that may be tough to find in young people but there are enough who possess those traits and they should be welcomed into the police force.

Tell me how littering, urinating in the street or smoking marajuna lets an individual fulfill their potential? Those who are serious about improving their place in society don't do these sort of things.
These bills haven't been approved yet but walking the streets you will see that all three violations are rampant.

Dogs freely urinate everywhere in NYC. Humans who can not easily find a restroom are criminalized for this activity. If a human being can not find a restroom and is able to urinate discreetly in public it should be given a pass.

And with these new rules continues the degradation of society by liberals who will not enforce existing laws? Why have rules at all if liberal judges will appease the criminals? Liberal policy rewrites the rules to accommodate the criminals, instead of protecting good citizens.

Liberalism run amok, I'd say. By all means, let these quality of life destroyers off with a slap on the wrist or a harsh glare, deterrence be damned. Residents and tourists alike are certain to cut NYC some slack and overlook the inevitable increase in public urination.

Perhaps Mayor de Blasio's next bright idea will be to capitalize on this by proposing a new sport for the Olympics, something similar to pentathlon or Nordic combined that would include public skate boarding, sidewalk bicycling, micturation and other obnoxious behaviors to be selected.

Note that under this new system the police on the beat will still have to issue summons but will now have to carry two different summons books, one for civil and the other for criminal offenses, and will have to spend additional time deciding which type of summons to issue. Of course, don't forget the "significant" and hugely costly expansion of City government's administrative court system. And here I thought that under socialism/communism the state was supposed to wither away.

So - the impoverished would have to find counsel and pay rather than depend on the public defender...

Civil chargers do not oblige government to defend at government expense.

The poor will not be able to defend themselves against civil complaints.

See APA and www.sblewis.com for what I did with APA in a similar area.

"Those accused of such violations would then go to a civil court run by the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, where they would face fines and civil judgments rather than warrants and jail time."

Is the author saying that currently the only penalty for these offenses is jail time? I have a hard time believing that. I'm pretty sure that many people currently pay fines to resolve these charges and do not get sent to jail.

De Blasio is resurrecting “The Rotting of the Big Apple” September 1990,

http://tullycast.com/2007/09/06/the-rotting-of-the-big-apple-september-1...

This is my second attempt to comment on this proposal, leaving out some emotional remarks that prompted you to censor my first try. I'd just like to point out that the City's Office of Administrative Tribunals and Hearings (OATH) is one of the City's tiniest agencies, conducting procedures almost entirely concerned with City employees, and hard put to keep up with even its current limited caseload; the idea of throwing tens of thousands of new "civil violations" at it involving urinating in the subway, public alcoholism, etc. is bizarre. No one, least of all the City Council, would seriously consider inflating OATH's personnel budget by the millions of dollars that would be needed to handle this new and completely unfamiliar challenge. If the City of New York no longer intends to enforce those parts of its Administrative Code that deal with these low-level behavioral irritants, it should just drop the pretense and save the money; this "compromise" proposal will accomplish nothing.

I think some of these comments overlook the fact that none of these offenses would become *legal* under this proposal. There are two different issues that are being conflated: (1) Whether these offenses are consistently penalized, and (2) what penalty should usually apply.

Personally, I think these laws should be vigorously and consistently enforced. Public urination is disgusting. As is public smoking of any kind (if only all forms of that were illegal!). But a ticket and fine would be entirely sufficient to punish most people for this and make them think twice before doing it again.

The heavy artillery of the criminal justice system is unnecessary, probably makes the police *less* likely to actually police garden variety infractions of these laws, and is enormously expensive to taxpayers and unduly damaging to the people convicted.

Better to just fine people for this stuff -- but do so more consistently.

The NYPD writes hundreds of thousands of summons each year, overwhelmingly with non-white persons for the same trivial offenses. Why would we expect that increasing police officer discretion would change any of that? In fact, without the probable cause burden of an arrest, it might be even easier to sweep people into the civil justice system than it is now. And one need look not much further than Ferguson to see how the violation-to-warrant-to-arrest regime operates. I'm having a hard time seeing this as not simply expanding the net of legal control for trivial acts.

So the real test of DeBlasio's philosophy about crime and Broken Windows comes to the fore. I think this is a huge gamble for DeBlasio, but one he couldn't avoid: his black and ultra-liberal constituents would hold him to his promises, even as everyone else will withdraw their support for his continuing in office should the impression of a more lawless New York grow.

Personally I think this is a big mistake. Sure, you can argue that the police have discretion to prosecute; but the public perception of a lack of law enforcement will all but guarantee a return to higher levels of crime and chaos. I saw graffiti in a subway car last week for the first time in - what? - almost 20 years?

I just don't see this as "protecting the quality of life of all our residents."
The smell of pee is awful, the sight of someone urinating on the street is awful. I even hate the site of 2 yr old boys doing it on the street.

I also hate walking down the street and inhaling the sweet smell of marijuana...it is especially delightful when you have been running or biking for training purposes.

I think the whole concept is a bad idea. The only good idea is community service, however, I do not how this can be enforced on a homeless person.

I am well aware that all the crimes listed are not just attributable to homeless individuals, probably, they commit them least of all

While I support the de-criminalization of the Police State that is NYC and especially the NYPD, public urination, intoxication and skateboarding can lead to slippery slope for no respect for other NYC inhabitants just trying to enjoy basic civilization or the law.

One can imagine a family on a beautiful fall day having to deal with an obnoxious intoxicated skateboarder peeing in front of the kids.

How does the Mayor and the NYPD insure balance? The proof is in the details.

Of course the City Council will do this, and get all their relatives off the hook and out of jail. Why am I not surprised?

Are "Public Urination" and Public drinking" lumped in the same category of offenses?

Arguably one may be ordered to referain from drinking.
A demand to refrain from urinating is sometimes impossible to comply with.
a city tht wishes to eliminate pulic urination, should also provide public toilets; a commodity that has become rare in most neighborhoods.

Give these minor offenses tickets with fines. End of story.

The police have scaled back their aggressive enforcement of crimes, and the number of crimes has dropped. In other words, fewer criminals are being arrested. That's not exactly what you would call a drop in crime.

Indeed! Quality of life crimes. That's a phrase coined long ago.

All those crimes certainly improved the quality of cops lives who now make rich people's money and the city government that still wants to have it's cake and eat it too.

Civil crimes now? Yup, that's what the cops are, civil servants preying on the same people that pay their paychecks.

Police and governments everywhere in America are now racketeers and shakedown artists unlike fifty years ago.

The only thing changing here are the names of the actions and courts.

Phony Baloney to me.

I remember when public urination and intoxication was an accepted part of St. Patrick's Day. I was glad when it was eliminated. Any chance the City will permit the return of real fireworks for Chinese New Year? Now that I miss.