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Making Phones Harder to Steal


phone
 

Following pressure from New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Sen. Charles Schumer, all four of the nation’s largest phone companies made an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission to help crack down on smartphone thefts by targeting demand for stolen phones.

Each phone comes equipped with an internal ID number which is different from the phone number or SIM card activation code. People who have had phones stolen will now be able to report the thefts, causing their phone ID to show up as stolen in a master database. This will make it impossible for someone else to buy a new sim card for a stolen phone and use it normally.

“We’re gonna make a [stolen] cellphone about as valuable as an empty wallet,” said Schumer who helped broker the agreement by putting pressure on FCC head Julius Genachowski, who used to work for Schumer.

“New technologies create risks,” Genachowski was quoted as saying.

The new rule is not the same thing as a law but all major cell phone carriers agreed to abide by it. Details are still pending for the database timetable.

Smartphones today cost an average of $400 to $600, are small, easy to carry and often held in plain sight, making it the most cost effective target for thieves and muggers. According to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was among the first chiefs to recommend the new program, cell phone thefts went up from 8 percent to over 40 percent of all grand larcenies and robberies in NYC, even as total crime rates continue to fall. According to the Daily News, that is 81 percent of all electronics thefts in 2011.

In the case of AT&T and T-Mobile, phone users can shut off their SIM cards but in most cases, their phone remains an active device, which can be equipped with a new card and taken right back into use. Verizon Communications and Sprint-Nextel already use stolen phone directories.

Under the agreement, all phone companies will maintain shared directories of every physical device’s unique ID number and track its purchase and use, at their own expense. If the owner of that phone ever reports it stolen, whoever tries to reactivate that phone with major phone carriers in the future, will be denied. These kinds of directories are widely used in European countries such as the U.K., France and Germany.

The phones can still be used as miniature computers with WiFi but since most of a smartphone’s utility comes from its connection to telephone and 4G networks, Schumer and his allies believe that stolen phones will drastically lose their value.

“Like draining the swamp to get rid of malaria, we’re going to dry out the market for stolen phones,” said Kelly.

Thieves can circumvent the blacklist by selling the phones abroad or hacking into the phone and changing its ID number. Schumer said that he will introduce legislation to make phone tampering of the sort punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

The phone companies also agreed to increase incentives for users to password-protect their phones and further deter theft.

Recent Ruling Changes Real Estate Law


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An opinion issued by New York's highest court has changed real estate law as it has been understood and applied for hundreds of years. The majority of the Court of Appeals has decided that a landlord can interfere with a tenant's exclusive possession of real property and the tenant is no longer necessarily entitled to a full abatement of rent. In the case of east side exhibition Corp v 210 east 86th street Corp., the court found that the interference was trivial or de minimus and did not warrant the withholding or abatement of rent.

The dispute arose in 2002 when the landlord of tenant's multiplex theater on east 86th St. in Manhattan installed cross-bracing between two steel support columns on each of the tenant’s two floors changing the flow of patrons and slightly reducing a seating area on the second floor. The work was done in anticipation of landlord's plan to add two floors to the building and resulted in a diminution of approximately 12square feet or one tenth of one percent of the leased property.

The real property law which goes back to feudal times originally applied to land, where diminution of tenant's possessory interest generally meant less farm land, but was until this case applied to modern development or improvement of the land.

Prominent real estate lawyer, David Rosenberg argued that his client had suffered "an actual partial eviction" which relived them of the obligation to pay rent. But a mid-level appellate court had already heard the case and said that " current landlord/tenant realities make it particularly untoward tp apply harsh and oppressive strictures derived from feudal law that mirror the policies and concerns of that earlier society."

Before adopting the prior court's reasoning, the high court acknowledged that "the withholding of the entire amount of rent is the proper remedy when there has been a partial eviction by a landlord." Citing long-standing law, the court continued, "If such an eviction, though partial only, is the act of the landlord because the landlord is not allowed to apportion his own wrong." In other words "the tenant has beebread deprived of the enjoyment of the demises premises by the wrongful act of the landlord" and the basis of the agreement to pay rent has collapsed. These principles have been in place even while the tenant remains in possession.

Reverting to an 1865 case decided in the same court, but ignored for the last century and a half, the majority opinion wrote "not every intrusion amounts to an eviction which warrants a full rent abatement ... when there has been no substantial interference with the use of the premises." Judge Ciparick's opinion further cites similar language applied by courts in other states to conclude that "the interference must be more than trivial," and there musts be "some deliberate disturbance of the possession depriving the tenant of the beneficial enjoyment of the demised premises ... to extinguish the rent." Since it was undisputed that the taking was of less than one-tenth of one percent of the space, even though there was some impediment to the flow of foot traffic and the cross-bracing was unattractive, it was "merely a trivial interference," and there was "no measurable effect on the tenant's use."

An unusual dissent followed, in which Judge Read, in a footnote, described her colleagues’' opinion as "schizophrenic." She criticized it for blaming the tenant for not having negotiated a lease which would have given the theater the right to withhold all rent based upon any intrusion, saying, "Why was it not incumbent on the landlord to negotiate" the term. The dissent was committed to following the line of cases which supported the tenant's position and which came long after the Civil War-era case relied upon in the majority opinion, Lounsbery v Snyder. She pointed out that Lounsbery involved a landlord placing firewood on the tenant's rented property. This, Judge Read, wrote was not a permanent taking of land or real estate, unlike the cross-breaching in the theater lobby. Meaning, she concluded, that there was no exclusion or expulsion, trivial or not. "In short," she wrote," a physical expulsion or exclusion is, by definition, non-trivial. Moreover, the intrusion or trespass is permanent, not transitory.

Siding with the theater, and describing the bracings as "an eyesore,” the dissent "would not characterize landlord's unwanted reaming of the lobby as trifling in amount or trivial in effect" and is "considerably different from what tenant bargained for in the lease. Going forward, according to Judge Read, "At least unt [commercial] tenants have the opportunity to negotiate lease terms that account for the change in the laws they have no effective way to combat unauthorized takings by landlords and in leases already entered, there was no way to anticipate this change in the law.

Landlord was represented by David Rosenberg, Tenant by Howard Grun.

The judges concurring with the majority opinion are judges Lippman, Graffeo, Smith, Pigott and Jones.

Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice

Close to Home


reformatory
Photo provided by New York Public Library
New York State reformatory, plumbing shop, circa 1921.

In his 2011 State of the City Address Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo to use an executive order to give control of juvenile offenders from New York City to the city itself. Rather than sending offenders to state-run facilities that are in many cases hundreds of miles away from their homes and are known to be violent and poorly run, the city would place the offenders in facilities close to home.

"The current system is not helping kids, it isn't helping taxpayers and it isn't helping public safety," Bloomberg said at the time. "The bottom line is, I think we all agree we need to stop sending kids miles away from their families and communities. And, instead, authorize the city to fully operate its own juvenile system here in the five boroughs."

But the state budget process had already begun Cuomo had already set his agenda for the year for dealing with the state’s flawed juvenile justice system—by closing some of the most troubled detention centers, trying to improve care in the existing ones and encouraging judges to sentence offenders to alternative treatment programs. Nevertheless at the end of session last year Assemblyman Karim Camara helped the city introduce the Juvenile Justice Realignment Act, that would have accomplished Bloomberg’ goal legislatively.

The bill did not come to a vote but as it turns out this year Cuomo has basically granted Bloomberg’s wish. Instead of using an executive order to hand control of the city’s youthful offenders over to the city Cuomo has made the initiative part of his budget plan as the ”Juvenile Justice Services Close to Home Initiative.” And while the move is not as sure as an executive order—making it part of the Governor’s budget package makes the chance of it becoming law much more likely than if it was a bill being pushed by Camara and the city.

Elizabeth Glazer, Cuomo’s Deputy Secretary for Public Safety, says that the initiative makes sense as part of the Governor’s overall approach to repairing the state’s broken juvenile justice system. She says the state would hand over jurisdiction of juvenile offenders from the city in two phases—offenders who are held in non-secure facilities will be transferred to the city as of this September and offenders in limited secure facilities will be handed over as of April 2013. Kids in secure facilities will remain in state care.

“Before that happens,” explains Glazer, New York City will have to lay out its plan for services that are the least restrictive but meet public safety and are also gender specific and tailored to the LBTQ community. There will public hearings and the city will have to explain how it incorporated the comments or why not.”

The Correctional Association of New York says that it is really the detail of the city’s plan that matters.

“The Governor’s initiative provides a unique opportunity for the creation of a new youth justice system in New York City, one that potentially could bring about better life outcomes for children and strengthen communities,” said Soffiyah Elijah, Executive Director of the CA.

“The CA has, for many years, advocated for keeping children in custody closer to their homes and communities. However, given the many challenges youth justice systems face both in keeping children safe and secure and in meeting the complex treatment and service needs of young people in custody, the details of the city’s plan are paramount,” said Elijah. “We very much look forward to receiving and being able to meaningfully respond to the city’s proposed plan.”

Glazer says it is important to realize that while “stepping back,” the state will, “Maintain crucial strong oversight of the city’s system, conduct on-site inspections and develop performance metrics and analytics,” for the facilities.

Advocates insist that recidivism rates can be reduced if juvenile offenders are kept near home, given support and not treated as career criminals. Kids in state run programs have recidivism rates of 80 to 90 percent while kids treated in alternative programs have only a 20 percent re-offense rate.

Assemblyman Camara has visited a number of treatment facilities and explains that sending a young offender to a secure detention facility in upstate New York can guarantee the child never reforms. “There is a much different culture in alternative programs. Kids that commit non-violent offenses may act tough, they might put on a show but they are not ready to deal with the setting of a secure facility. It crushes their spirit. They don’t get supportive services and the recidivism rate is so high—it is the whole culture and become a part of it.”

The Money

Why is the initiative part of the Governor’s budget package? Simply put—because detaining kids costs money--keeping a youthful offender in a secure facility costs around $260,000 a year. Alternative treatment programs cost about $20,000 per child, per year. And the state, to the chagrin of public employee unions, is slowly but surely getting out of the business of juvenile justice. Last year Cuomo closed detention facilities and this year the system is expected to further lose around 300 beds. The reductions are being carried out in a way that will allow for a regional model of care to possibly be implemented across the state.

Overall the state expects to save $9 million dollars by implementing the “Close to Home Initiative” in the 2012-2013 fiscal year and $12 million in FY 2013-2014. Thanks to the reduced number of kids in the system the state will be able to downsize the detention system and expects to save quite a bit on that--$9 million in FY 2012-2013 and $37 million in the following fiscal year.

The Future

Perhaps most indicative of the way the Cuomo Administration expects to approach juvenile justice for the entire state is another mandate that is part of the “Close to Home Initiative” that will require all family court judges to have a “predispositional risk assessment” of each juvenile offender before sentencing. The one-page document would be designed to help judges decide how likely someone is to reoffend and exactly what kind of setting would best suit them.

According to Glazer the risk assessment will likely evaluate a child’s criminal offense, school attendance and other factors that play into the risk that they will reoffend.

“There is a complete shift of resources being used more effectively and accurately state wide. Every county will be required to have risk assessment at detention.” Glazer points out that the move will not only save money but hopefully prevent offenders who are generally “good kids” from being sent to secure facilities where they might fall in with a far worse crowd than they know at home—thereby reducing recidivism.

Glazer says that the Office of Child and Family Services is working with the Department of Justice and the department of probation to make sure judges and everyone else in the chain is comfortable with working with these new evaluations.

Camara says he thinks his colleagues in the Assembly are supportive of the “Close to Home Initiative” and he expects that when Senators here more about the plan that they will get on board. He says he has seen firsthand what a difference being near home can make for a child in trouble. “I’ve toured these places and there is a huge difference between the facilities in Brooklyn than the juvenile facility on Rikers Island. There is different atmosphere and kids are closer to their family and have the support staff they need.”



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