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Three Keys to Positive Criminal Justice Reform in New York


cuomo abny

Gov. Cuomo speaks to ABNY (photo: @NYGovCuomo)


It has been encouraging to hear Governor Andrew Cuomo call for a resolution of the unfortunate conflict that has broken out between Mayor de Blasio and the leaders of the NYPD unions. A number of our elected leaders are proposing responses to this affair and to the larger issue of the execrable state of police/community relations that has erupted across the nation over the past year catalyzed by the Ferguson and Staten Island deaths of young men of color at the hands of police officers.

Based on my experience as a lawyer and legal reform consultant, including several years as criminal justice advisor to the administration of Governor Mario Cuomo, I have three recommendations to make regarding criminal justice reform in the State of New York.

First, over the past two decades, a once vibrant movement toward community policing -- police service founded on true partnership with community stakeholders -- has been all but totally eclipsed by the kind of data-driven policing that Bill Bratton debuted in New York City in 1994. I am a witness to the fact that this style of numbers-driven policing was aggressively promoted throughout the nation and has been hugely influential. It has fundamentally changed the relationship between municipal police agencies and the public they serve and not for the better.

While many credit CompStat and other policing tactics that are descended from it for the historic reductions in crime nationwide, this style of policing has driven a wedge between police and communities of color. Crime may be going down, but public dissatisfaction has been skyrocketing. That is what protesters across the nation are saying. That is what New York City voters were saying when they elected Bill de Blasio last year. Their complaint is both legitimate and urgent. Whomever is tasked with the Cuomo Administration response to this phenomenon should be given a clear mandate to reignite the community policing movement.

Second, former Governor Mario Cuomo, may he rest in peace, signed into law Chapter 55 of the Laws of 1983, the Neighborhood Preservation Crime Prevention Act (NPCPA). This DCJS-administered program was intended to foster the creation of an infrastructure of community-based nonprofit organizations that could access new resources and collaborate with police and other municipal agencies to improve quality of life in neighborhoods that otherwise would slide into decay and criminality. This inspired piece of legislation would have empowered neighborhoods and their residents to have a major impact on the quality of life in their communities. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, NPCPA was never funded, staffed, implemented.

The kind of community-based infrastructure it would have created would have helped neighborhoods and police agencies work together in productive partnership. This law is still on the books. As the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo moves forward in developing its response to the police/community relations crisis, I would strongly suggest taking up this piece of Mario Cuomo's legacy and fulfilling its promise at last.

Third, for over half a century, the decision of the US Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright has guaranteed that poor persons who get swept up in the machinery of the criminal justice system should have effective legal representation. As all know, this promise has not been kept. Certainly, were we to address this decisively and dramatically, we would be leveling the playing field between the poor accused and the police and prosecutors who arrest them in their tens of thousands and force them into plea bargains that ruin their lives.

Any thoughtful person who contemplates the many decades over which this issue has been left on the backmost burner can only condemn the total lack of engagement by the Executive, the Legislature, and the Bar in doing what is so obviously the right thing. The shameful fact is that there has been no meaningful judicial reform in New York since the administration of Nelson A. Rockefeller and he accomplished what he did because he made it a top personal goal of his own. I ask Governor Cuomo to accept the challenge of Gideon right now when doing so would do the most good.

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Terry O'Neill is Director of the Constantine Institute in Albany, an organization that promotes constitutional, legal and ethical standards in law enforcement and advises state and local governments on police issues. He is a lawyer and served as a criminal justice advisor to the administration of Governor Mario Cuomo from 1988 to 1994.

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