When Governor George Pataki focused on crime in his 11th State of the State address, he talked about his plans to handle crime in the future -- creating a "New York's 100 Most Wanted" Web site; pushing an "aggressive anti-crime package, dealing with issues ranging from deadly drivers and gun trafficking to strengthening Megan's Law, and yes - ensuring that our state has a strong death penalty law." And he boasted of his decade-long track record in handling crime -- "108 new laws that toughened penalties or closed criminal-friendly loopholes."
But in his entire speech, he made no mention whatsoever of New York's so-called Rockefeller drug laws.
These laws, which include strict penalties for first-time drug offenders, have been criticized as unfair and unnecessary, and activists have lobbied state officials to revoke them. Finally, in December, after about a decade of trying, and just a couple of weeks before Pataki's speech, the legislature passed a measure to reform the laws. Now, more than 400 prisoners can apply for their freedom, and felons guilty of less serious crimes will get reduced sentences.
But the underlying problems remain - how to stop drug-related crime; what to do about drug-induced criminals. Nearly two-thirds of all prisoners in jail for drug-related offenses are repeat offenders.
Within the criminal justice system, there is an option being viewed more and more favorably, one that does not include prison time, and that many advocates hope to expand. That option is drug court - something else that Pataki did not mention in his speech.
The Rockefeller Law Reform
The Rockefeller drug laws were passed in the 1970s (under then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller), but the drug problem became even worse in the 1980s, spurring a second wave of tough drug laws that ensnared even more drug users and sellers.
Activists who criticized the lock-em-up approach focused on the sad stories of young people seemingly tripped up by their own personal problems more than any calculated plans to make an illicit profit, sentenced to more than 15 years.
Those tragedies may happen but "the lion's share of drug arrests are buy-and-bust operations that target $10 and $20 drug sales," said Valerie Raine, director of drug treatment programs for the Center for Court Innovation, the research group that advises the New York State Court System.
There are 15,600 drug felons in New York State prisons, according to the state Department of Correctional Services. Only about 2,600 of them are guilty of the most serious felonies, called Class A felonies.
Of the remaining 13,000, most (more than 9,800) are repeat offenders guilty of lesser crimes (so-called Class B, C and D crimes).
What the new reforms passed in December will do is reduce the sentences for certain non-violent offenders guilty of a Class B felony, from the current sentences of up nine years to as little as three years.
Drug Courts
Mike Magnani remembers what it was like before there were drug courts in New York City. First-time offenders guilty of small-time drug dealing did, pled or said whatever they had to do in order "to get out the door" and get back to the street, where they could feed their drug habit. Not too surprisingly, most would soon be back. Their second conviction would lead to serious jail time.
The first drug court, the Brooklyn Treatment Court, began in 1996, and it took a different approach -- treating people addicted to drugs before they became repeat offenders facing mandatory time in state prison. Drug users and sellers received supervised treatment instead of jail time. To be eligible for treatment in drug court, however, the defendants had to be found clinically addicted through a screening process, and had to plead guilty. Not every offender is eligible.
Drug courts have now expanded beyond Brooklyn to all five boroughs. Treatment typically lasts more than a year, with frequent trips to the judge to monitor progress. Judges use punishment as a motivator for offenders to complete the treatment program. A first slip-up might mean a weekend in jail; another slip-up three or four days. Positive reinforcement is also part of the program. "The judge becomes more than just the authority figure in court, if he says you're doing a good job, that means a lot to these people," said Magnani, who worked to help expand the Brooklyn Treatment Court, and continues to be involved in drug courts as the director of grants and program development for the New York State Court System.
A three-year study by the Center for Court Innovation found that New York drug courts sharply reduced recidivism rates. While treatment programs do exist within New York prisons, Raine said research has been done that shows treatment done outside of prison has a better success rate. Some research suggests that two thirds of drug felons are rearrested within three years after being released from prison.
Non-Adversarial; Not Perfect
Drug courts have grown in popularity, and in 2000 New York became the first state to announce a program that would greatly expand drug court to include nearly all non-violent criminals addicted to drugs.
A drug court is now operating in every New York county. About 7,000 New Yorkers have participated in drug court since its inception. There were 3,384 referrals to New York City drug courts in 2003, with 1030 pleas taken. If drug courts could theoretically now handle as many as 10,000 non-violent criminals a year statewide, drug courts have not handled nearly as much, said Raine.
Some see the next step as expanding drug court beyond drug cases. In New York, a new program began last year in Brooklyn called STEP, an acronym for Screening and Treatment Enhancement Part. The program expanded the criteria for drug court eligibility to include people accused of non-drug crimes. Magnani said that a similar program is scheduled to begin in the Bronx.
Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, has for years spoken out against the Rockefeller drug laws. He said that he hadn't studied New York drug courts closely, but "we have a generally favorable impression. The problem with the drug courts is that the decision about who is eligible…is controlled by the prosecutors."
Raine said that New York City offered a more formalized screening process to decide who should be eligible for drug court, but "at the end of the day, [the decision] lies with prosecutors." And prosecutors differ in their willingness to partner with drug courts. "In Brooklyn, [District Attorey Charles] Hynes has been a great partner and believer of treatment,"said Magnani. Hynes introduced a separate program apart from drug court called Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison in 1990, which gave repeat offenders facing mandatory prison time an option of residential treatment instead of prison.
Magnani said an important part of a successful drug court is that prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and defendants must all agree on what the best course of action is. "We try to make the courtroom non-adversarial…we don't want lawyers arguing…If an addict hears that type of stuff, they think there's a crack that they can get through."
But it can be difficult to get all the players to buy in to the drug court concept. "If there is a first-time offender with a misdemeanor, there is no way a defense attorney is going to say, 'You need a year of treatment,'" said Raine.
Nevertheless, misdemeanor drug courts exist in New York City (treatment might typically last 90 days, said Magnani). Another type of drug court would work with youthful offenders. But Magnani cautioned that the typical drug court candidate was in their late 20s, and that the graduated punishment and reward system that works for adults might not be the best way to treat a younger population.
Melissa Gayle, 10th grader at Washington Irving High School who spent her spare time doing charity work with a religious group in the Bronx, was on her way to get a snack near her home in East Harlem one evening in October, when she was shot deadby a single, stray bullet.
It is difficult to call her random murder commonplace in New York City. One could almost be comforted by the recent improvement in the statistics – shootings in the city decreased from 2,030 in 1999 to 1,837 in 2003. And while nationwide, almost three-quarters of all murders were committed with a gun, in New York City, it is a little bit more than half – some 325 people shot dead in 2002, according to the Department of Health, not including those deaths caused by the police.
But even one such horror story makes it clear that the battle to stop gun violence has not been won. Now, while police continue with strategies designed specifically to get guns off the street, the frontline in the battle is as much in the courtroom, thanks to the new Gun Courts, and ongoing gun lawsuits.
Police continue to attack the gun problem on a variety of fronts outlined in a Vera Institute of Justice report(in pdf format). Operation Gun Stop, an anonymous tip program that offers a $1000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone for felony gun possession, resulted in the recovery of 455 illegal guns and 757 arrests from April 2002 through last December.
The Firearms Investigation Unit continues to work undercover, as the case against the men involved in the shooting deaths of two undercover officers last year continues. The case highlights the dangers of trying to crack down on illegal gun traffickers, dangers that might have increased since the expiration of the federal ban on assault weapons.
The idea behind gun courts is at least partly grounded in psychology. Before gun courts, cases where illegal gun possession is the most serious charge were mixed in with other cases, sometimes murder or rape cases, that had the effect of making gun possession seem minor in comparison. Mandatory sentences might seem to solve that problem, but while New York has stiff penalties of a year for even first-time offenders guilty of illegal gun possession, judges are able to set aside the minimum if they feel it is unduly harsh.
So, Brooklyn Gun Court was born in April of last year, to keep gun cases from “fall[ing] between the cracks of the criminal courts,” explained Justice Jonathan Lippman, the state’s chief administrative judge. The court began by hearing cases from five Brooklyn neighborhoods known by police to be centers of gun violence. The concept has since expanded to include parts of the Bronx and Queens. In each gun court, one judge and a handful of prosecutors handle all gun cases.
New York is not the first city to adopt the gun court strategy in an effort to speed up gun cases and enforce sentences more in line with mandatory minimums. But it may be one of the toughest, at least compared with the nation’s first gun court in Providence, Rhode Island.
Rhode Island, like New York, has long had lengthy mandatory sentences for those convicted of illegal gun possession. In Providence, however, before the creation of gun court, sentences—including probation—were only imposed in 67 percent of cases, and jail time imposed in only about 25 percent of cases. During the first four years of gun court, sentences were enforced in 82 percent of cases.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg happily trumpeted the drastic change after the first few months of gun court. Of the first 97 cases resolved by the gun court, 98 percent resulted in jail or prison for offenders, and median jail time increased from 90 days to a year. Statistics in the current issue of Legal Affairs magazinereveal that about 75 percent of the first 300 cases resulted in sentences of at least one year in jail, compared to about 50 percent of gun cases in the rest of the borough that don’t go through gun court.
Clearly gun courts are specialized courts that, unlike drug courts, which offer counseling, mainly exist to make sure criminals are punished for illegal gun possession. Whether or not such sentences will reduce gun violence in the city remains to be seen.
Stopping the flow of illegal guns before they reach New York remains the top priority of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, an advocacy group which is once again pushing for city legislation that they hope would make it easier for gunmakers to be held liable in court when guns are used in crimes Various efforts against gun manufacturers remain ongoing, including a lawsuit by the city.
City council legislation that would set out the criteria that would make gun manufacturers liable has been languishing since last year, but Andy Pelosi, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, remains focused on passing the legislation, the Gun Industry Responsibility Act. Sponsored by Councilmember David Yassky, it is currently before the City Council.
“About 85 to 95 percent of guns used in crime come from out of state,” Pelosi said. Statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (in pdf format) back up Pelosi’s assertion.Â
The stories would be more shocking if they didn’t all sound so similar: a woman killed -- shot or stabbed or strangled -- at the hands of a current or former lover. From 1995 through 2002, more than 300 New York women were killed by someone with whom they were in a romantic relationship, according to a new study released by city health officials last month. And while overall the murder rate in New York declined dramatically over the same time period, the study concluded that there was very little decline in the number of women killed by an intimate partner.
“This problem is not going to be fixed by ways you normally think of to reduce crime,” said Dr. Susan Wilt, author of the study and assistant commissioner for the Health Department's Bureau of Injury Epidemiology. She noted that police can’t be expected to patrol inside people’s homes.
Part of the problem is convincing more women to get help. While a national study has reported that the majority of intimate partner homicides involve physical abusebefore turning deadly, in New York, over 70 percent of family-related homicides -- a police category that includes homicides committed by an intimate partner -- had no prior police contact, according to the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence.
The report, entitled “Femicide in New York City: 1995-2002"(in pdf format), is based on data gathered from the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, which classified the deaths of 1,030 women aged twelve and older as homicides from 1995 through 2002. After studying this data, which included police records, researchers concluded that 369 of the deaths were non-intimate homicides, 339 were intimate homicides and 322 had an unknown motive (In most of these deaths, along with several in the other two categories, the perpetrator remains unknown. While not meant to be an official police clearance rate, the study notes that the perpetrator’s name was able to be determined by researchers in only 54.5 percent of cases.)
While the motives and identities of perpetrators can be hazy, the single most common, or at least clearly identifiable, motive for killing women was related to their having an intimate partner. Separate from that category, about 10 percent of women killed were killed as part of a sex crime or a drug-related crime, while about six percent were killed due to family violence.
Far fewer women have been killed by non-intimate partners in years after 1995, but the rate of women killed by intimate partners, while fluctuating yearly, was only 20 percent less in 2002 than in 1995. In 1995, 1.54 out of every 100,000 New York women were killed by intimate partners, while in 2002 the rate was 1.23 per 100,000 women. Contrast those numbers with the decline in the numbers of women killed by people with whom they were not romantically involved: 2.35 per 100,000 in 1995, down to 1.04 per 100,000 in 2002, a decline of 56 percent.
The study also identifies characteristics of female victims of homicide. Black women made up about 50 percent of all women killed, while Hispanic women accounted for 27 percent of homicides and white women 18 percent.
Researchers found that 51 percent of women killed by an intimate partner were foreign born. (Wilt noted that 47 percent of women aged 12 and older in New York are foreign born).
Yolanda B. Jimenez, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, noted that focus groups of immigrant women have pointed to the language barrier as the number one reason why they are reluctant to call police. Jimenez noted that not only is it difficult for non-English speakers to make themselves understood, but it might mean that a neighbor will have to become involved when the police come. And if the woman’s partner speaks English and she doesn’t, it can leave the woman who needs help left out of a conversation with police when they arrive.
Jimenez pointed to a pilot program begun in the 115th Police Precinct that equips police with cell phone access to interpreters in various languages. Jimenez called the project a success, and said the program was going to expand to the 109th Police Precinct.
Wilt noted that the community has to be aware of their influence in preventing homicides. “They have a role, a really important role…Community organizations have to realize that."
Police may not be the only group that can help prevent femicide. Wilt noted that an 11-city study published last year cited specific risk factors for women. The study recommended that health-care professionals take an active role in identifying potentially life-threatening situations. The study suggested doctors ask domestic violence victims if the abuser has a gun (about 40 percent of intimate partner femicides in New York involved the use of a gun, compared to about 32 percent of non-intimate partner femicides).
Jimenez said the city was “in the process” of responding to some of the risk factors cited in the report. “One-third of all women who present at emergency rooms are there because their injuries are caused by an intimate partner,” Jimenez said. In New York, Jimenez said that every hospital has a domestic violence coordinator, along with digital cameras and link-ups to a database so information about domestic violence assaults can be recorded quickly and easily.
The city has distributed manuals to all health-care professionals related to being culturally sensitive when trying to spot domestic abuse. As far as guns, however, those questions are asked by social workers, not doctors.