http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=815

by Jessica Coco, PCUSA Women’s Commission

The “Broken Windows” theory of policing has shaped New York City since the 1990’s, with police under tons of pressure to make arrests and issue summonses for nonviolent offenses that aren’t even against the law – anything to get poor people and people of color out of public view, and make the city safe for business and real estate to jack up the rents and make middle- and upper-class New Yorkers feel safer.

Until now. This week, as a political ploy to put pressure on a mayor they say is their enemy, the NYPD has called off business as usual. The leading police union issued a memo telling all officers that “NO enforcement action in the form of arrests and/or summonses” is to be taken “unless absolutely necessary.”

The result? Arrests have dropped by 90%.

Think about that. The NYPD has just let us know that 90% of the arrests they make are unnecessary. “The reported offenses they aren’t enforcing as much are [mostly] not criminal offenses: parking violations, urination in public, public intoxication, as well as some marijuana possession. Do we really want over 4,000 people a week locked up for peeing behind a dumpster?”  asked Marc Krupanski, a program officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, in an article in Vice Magazine.

Our members are the people who have been hit the hardest by broken windows policing. Homeless people face harassment and ticketing and arrest on a daily basis by the NYPD. The city spends billions of dollars to criminalize and persecute and arrest and try and incarcerate the poorest of the poor – but won’t spend a dime of that on getting people housing.

Chris: This NYPD scare tactic is idiotic. They’ve basically just said to us “90% of the work that we do is unnecessary.” All this taxpayer money being wasted to lock someone up for a bag of weed or someone peeing behind a dumpster?

Thirteen: I talk to cops. I talk to the brass, even. Police are not down with making bogus arrests. That’s why top cops have been quitting. Unnecessary arrests just make people mad at cops. That’s why people hate cops. When I was a kid the police knew everyone in the neighborhood. We need to get back to that model of community policing.

Scott: They can do a lot with the money they save with this. A 90% reduction in the amount taxpayers spend on incarceration could pay for a lot of public restrooms… to say nothing of housing.

Maria: They need to listen to what we have to say. They’re wasting our time in courtrooms, making us miss work, getting us logged out of shelters, and now we see how unnecessary that was.

Sidat: We need to drive home that they’re not supposed to be arresting people in the first place. This is going to end – they’re going to return to business as usual. They don’t . So we need to get the public behind us to say “OK, you’ve admitted how little of what you do is about protecting people, let’s do things differently.”?

Andres: We need to hit the streets with cameras. Cop Watch. Keep them behind the law. Let them know someone is watching.

Dave: They need to apply Broken Windows to Wall Street. Everyone who steals a stapler, every banker who gets a bonus for kicking someone out of their home. Send some lawyers to jail, let some rich people feel what it feels like, and you’ll see things change pretty fast. The PBA, and individual officers, should be the ones held financially responsible for settlements of lawsuits. Having taxpayers pick up the bill for cops violating people’s rights creates no incentive on cops to behave.

Nikita: Our communities are missing so many resources. Housing, education – they need to take this money and use it in the neighborhoods they’re systematically depleting through gentrification and overpolicing, so that we can uplift ourselves.