(Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Smoking marijuana in public will only be legalized if the New York State Assembly and Senate – huffing and puffing – change the penal law.
With no change, the real problem in New York City is the collateral consequences – past, present, and future – arrests for marijuana cause thousands of black and Hispanic New Yorkers disproportionately impacted by the NYPD’s approach. These consequences include issues when applying for a license or job, or leading to deportation proceedings as mandated by President Trump’s onerous immigration executive order.
These consequences could start to be mitigated if Mayor Bill de Blasio will “tell” – actually order – his police commissioner not to make misdemeanor marijuana arrests and instead directs the NYPD to issue a non-criminal summons when marijuana is smoked publicly. Additionally, de Blasio must enlist all five of the city’s district attorneys to decline criminal marijuana prosecutions – only the Manhattan and Brooklyn D.A.s have taken up this policy.
If the NYPD submits, a misdemeanor marijuana arrest will virtually be eliminated as a criminal charge, fingerprints will not be taken, nor sent to the FBI. For a non-criminal summons a fine can be paid by mail. This process would in essence decriminalize marijuana.
The proposed mayoral no-arrest policy – guaranteed to cause consternation at the NYPD’s highest level – will generate a reflex response that not making marijuana misdemeanor arrests is inconsistent with enforcing the law and it is Albany’s responsibility to change the law.
As he assigned a 30-day review of marijuana enforcement, de Blasio’s hopeful statement, “I respect the NYPD, which has proven the ability to innovate to come up with the how. I have a mandate for them, I’m convinced they will figure out how to act on it,” is unrealistic.
The mayor cannot really believe that the NYPD will voluntarily recommend “innovative” ideas – in 30 days – or significantly change its crime strategies of stopping, frisking, seizing marijuana, and arresting a person for smoking it in public, after 50-plus years of no progressive ideas for how to effectively address this issue.
The NYPD’s hazy and quick response after de Blasio’s announcement is hardly encouraging, “The (NYPD) 30-day Working Group on marijuana enforcement is underway, and this issue is certainly part of that review. The Working Group is reviewing possession and public smoking of marijuana to ensure enforcement is consistent with the values of fairness and trust, while also promoting public safety and addressing community concerns.”
There was a sleight of hand NYPD “reform” concerning marijuana arrests to ease the public pressure when stop-and-frisks were at all-time highs.
Since 2013, the NYPD, instead of criminally processing a person arrested, has often given a Desk Appearance Ticket – a misdemeanor criminal summons for public smoking – after a person is arrested, photographed, and fingerprinted, if there is no outstanding warrant for that person’s arrest. The only real DAT benefit is the person is not incarcerated for 10 or 20 or more hours waiting for a criminal court arraignment.
Annually, more than 15,000 individuals were arrested and charged with a misdemeanor, overwhelmingly receiving a DAT for smoking pot in public, and approximately 30,000 non-criminal summonses were issued for pot possession.
For these 45,000 New Yorkers and the hundreds of thousands before and after them, the collateral consequences for arrests and even for non-criminal summonses continue.
While legalization is debated the Legislature and the Governor must immediately enact an exemption to state law that currently mandates fingerprinting a person arrested for criminal possession of marijuana.
The Legislature and the Governor must specifically exclude from disclosure any pending or adjudicated marijuana arrest or non-criminal summons issued or asked about in any employment application for public service, a license or to obtain any public benefit.
While the mayor, the governor, and the Legislature dither about the legalization of marijuana, it is time for the mayor, after four-and-a-half years in office, to lead – and drag the NYPD along – to eliminate marijuana arrests, which will start to end the collateral consequences.
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Arnold Kriss is a Manhattan attorney who formerly served as a Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney and Deputy Commissioner of Trials in the NYPD.
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Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
In February at Mayor de Blasio's State of the City address, we heard plans to make New York City "the fairest big city in America." During his speech, the mayor talked about affordable housing, universal pre-K, and even global warming. But who was forgotten in his speech? The more than 64,000 homeless New Yorkers who face discrimination every day in their search for housing and stability.
I am one of the 64,000 people living in a shelter in this "fair" city. I've been homeless for over a year. I was first given the Special Exit and Prevention Supplement (SEPS) voucher last July. SEPS is a program that is supposed to help me secure housing and pay a portion of my rent—but I've been unable to find a landlord who will accept it, even though refusing vouchers is illegal in New York City. My story is not unique. Thousands of homeless New Yorkers like me can pay rent but can’t find housing due to rampant source-of-income discrimination by landlords and brokers. This isn’t just plain wrong, it’s against the law.
In fact, in 2008, Mayor de Blasio himself (then a City Council member) wrote legislation amending the Human Rights Law to include protections from source-of-income discrimination, and celebrated this victory as making New York City one of the strongest anti-discrimination cities in the country.
I work four days a week, go to school on Fridays, and in my few free moments, I search for housing. I see a housing specialist, I call brokers who who post ads for apartments, and I fill out applications for the affordable housing lottery. I have conversation after conversation at my church, in my workplace, and at school, to find out if anyone has a new lead for housing. This process has exhausted me, tested my mental and physical health, and above all, has made me angry that anyone could call this city "fair" or on the way to “fairest.”
The mayor began his first term promising to "end the tale of two cities," and began his second with the “fairest big city” goal. Meanwhile, he's created so little deeply affordable housing and not nearly enough support for the thousands of us who are without a home. Without real action, a slogan of "fairness" is a slap in the face to New Yorkers who are homeless and discriminated against.
Now, I hear Mayor de Blasio is proposing to cut $1.7 million from the city’s Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)—the agency in charge of helping people who face discrimination. I know that these rental assistance programs are riddled with problems, and they are not the perfect solution to homelessness. But right now, they are the most immediate ticket out of this struggle, and their use must be protected.
Homeless New Yorkers and advocates rallied at City Hall recently to protest Mayor de Blasio’s proposed budget cuts to the CCHR. The administration's response angered me more: we were made to feel like our demands were unreasonable and were told that the cuts would not impact the source-of-income discrimination work at the CCHR. We heard that all five people who currently make up that unit won't be impacted at all. Even so -- five people to protect tens of thousands' right to housing!
Any money cut to the commission renders its work less effective, period. Any cut signals to New Yorkers that the mayor simply does not consider the anti-discrimination work of the commission a priority. And most of all, allowing the CCHR to exist without adequate resources represents Mayor de Blasio’s fragmented and flawed approach to solving homelessness.
If Mayor de Blasio wants to make New York City “the fairest big city in America,” he can start by doing everything in his power to make sure the city's most vulnerable people are protected by the law and can find permanent housing.
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Georgia Morgan is a member of VOCAL-NY, a grassroots organization that builds power among low-income people impacted by homelessness, HIV/AIDS, drug use, and mass incarceration. On Twitter @VOCALNewYork.
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Puerto Rican Day Parade (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office)
About 2.5 million New York City residents are Latino, making the community the second largest ethnic group in the city only after non-Latino whites. The majority of the city’s Latino population is U.S. born and nearly 80% say they speak Spanish at home.
But despite strong population growth, Latino New Yorkers face a number of adverse conditions that continue to put constraints on their economic progress. About 26.4% of all Latino families live in poverty. That number jumps to 49.9% among households led by women with children. Immigration status, high unemployment, and displacement are just a few of the pressing contributing factors leaving Latinos behind.
The Latino community must work together to shape its future.
With that in mind, last year three Latino research institutes at CUNY—the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Hunter College-CUNY) and the Mexican Studies Institute —along with other partners, held the first ever New York City Summit on Latinos (SoL-NYC), to forge advocacy coalitions to develop an action-based agenda of policy priorities that can move the Latino community forward.
As we prepare to hold the second SoL-NYC Summit on Friday, June 1, we released a set of recommendations produced at last year’s conference through the participation of over 40 representatives of Latino or Latino-serving organizations. While it identifies some of the constraints on Latinos in New York City, it also calls for immediate action.
The recommendations include education reforms responsive to the linguistic and cultural needs of our children; increasing civic and political participation of the community; better access to jobs and economic opportunities, as well as strengthening the city’s “sanctuary” status to better protect law-abiding immigrants at risk of deportation.
This year is particularly important given the federal government’s one-sided focus on immigration, the upcoming gubernatorial election, where Latinos could play a crucial role, and the still-painful devastation left in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. The aftermath of Maria in particular is driving a new exodus to the New York area of Puerto Rican families, which could once again bring demographic change.
As academic institutions, we do not engage in direct action or endorse political candidates. However, we recognize the importance such strategies bring to other stakeholders as they see fit.
Latinos are not a homogeneous group. In New York City, Hispanics represent over 20 different countries of origin and national ethnicities, which can pose a challenge to finding a common agenda.
As conveners, our role is to produce data and non-partisan policy analysis as well as an important space for key stakeholders to find common ground, build alliances, and strengthen their organizing power.
Latinos are strong in numbers; we are the youngest New Yorkers, with a median age of 31 and 36% under the age of 18. We now need to come together to wake up our own sleeping giant and create change.
It is encouraging to see Latinas obtaining college degrees at a faster pace now and also represented among new candidates for office and those recently elected.
However, there are deep, ongoing challenges -- the unemployment rate is still very high, for example, at 11%, compared to the overall unemployment rate of 3.9% in New York City (as of December 2017). Who is making sure that every job creation effort at the city and state levels includes Latinos? Without good-paying jobs there is no upward mobility for a group that’s the poorest and whose diversity brings language barriers as well as different educational levels and immigration statuses. Those are the kinds of discussion our annual conference wants to foster.
While the Puerto Rican and Dominican populations have been growing and spreading around the country, New York City remains the place with the most Puerto Ricans and Dominicans anywhere in the United States. New York City is also the seat of Puerto Rican and Dominican political power at the local, state, and federal levels, given both representation and influence. The Mexican population in the city continues to grow as well, leading also to political empowerment at the city level. Overall, Latinos have become nearly one-quarter of the New York City electorate, mirroring the importance of the Latino vote on the national level.
We are calling on neighborhood leaders, organizations, and other stakeholders in the Latino community to use the conference as a powerful tool to help bring the much-needed resources Latinos need.
Latinos are in good position to drive legislative change. Let’s take advantage of that power to make New York City a more livable home for Latinos and everybody else!
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Carlos Vargas-Ramos, Director of Policy, External and Media Relations, Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College (CUNY).
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