Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Opinion

Opinion

'Broken Windows:' Immoral, Ineffective, & Out of Time


nypd leaders

NYPD leaders discuss crime (photo: @NYPDNews)


Even with the publicized results of the recent work slowdown by officers — cops stopped arresting and ticketing people for minor infractions and crime went into a steep decline — Mayor de Blasio continues to defend 'broken windows' policing. A serious moral and political lapse by the city's most progressive mayor in at least 20 years.

The NYPD's quota-driven, 'broken windows' practices target low-level, often innocuous activities like carrying an open alcohol container, walking between subway cars, begging, and jaywalking. A mockery of justice, now exposed in an "emperor has no clothes" moment as ineffective, 'broken windows' policing everyday inflicts harm and hardship on hundreds, if not thousands, mostly low-income people of color. This stark racial bias which includes the aggressive bullying of marginalized groups like the homeless, sex workers, the mentally ill, street vendors, and LGBT youth prevails without, for the most part, organized opposition or outcry from any quarter, including the good people working within the system. Relevant are the telling words from Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we just celebrated: "In the end we will remember most not the voices of our enemies but the silence of our friends."

The daily racial bias and injustice of the system is undeniable. Here are sample statistics that we have culled from the NYPD and other government agencies that indicate how 'broken windows' is enforced and why it must end:

-From 2008-2011, the police issued an average of eight bike-on-the-sidewalk summonses in Park Slope, Brooklyn. During the same time period, for these kinds of tickets the annual average in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn was 2,050.

-For the first 9 months of 2014, the NYPD made 174,823 misdemeanor arrests (648 per day), 86.2 percent involving people of color. Despite the fact that a new administration began in 2014, these figures represent a remarkably similar pattern to the arrest practices of the same span in 2013 when the numbers were 173,625 arrests, 87% involving people of color.

-95 percent of the people incarcerated on Rikers Island are black or Hispanic, confined because of two main factors: the NYPD arrested and locked them up; and they were too poor to make bail.

-In 2011, the height of the NYPD's use of stop-and-frisk, black and Hispanic males between the ages of 14 and 24 accounted for 41.6 percent of stops even though they are only 4.7 percent of the city's population. The number of stops of young black men in 2011 exceeded the entire city population of young black men — 168,126 stops compared to 158,406 people.

Compounding the harm done by 'broken windows' policing are the collateral consequences of these petty arrests and summonses: loss of one's job or time at work, denial of access to scholarships or public housing, loss of child custody, even deportation in some cases. More than any current government policy or practice, 'broken windows' causes and reflects the everyday social, economic, and racial inequities that afflict our city. 'Broken windows' policing and its consequences represent "a tale of two cities" writ large.

New York City cannot have two different criminal justice systems.

The significance of now, of this moment is that it is the first time in the city's history that the issue of abusive and biased policing is front and center in the political landscape and the policy debate. Previous outcries focused on egregious incidents of police brutality and excessive force such as the shooting deaths of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell. Never before has there been a sustained and highly visible movement aimed at exposing and correcting the daily systemic practices that compromise the lives and well-being of people, practices that serve to devalue the worth and lives of black and Hispanic people and create the circumstances wherein it is inevitable that fatalities occur at the hands of police officers.

In sum, here's the bad news: these terrible and unjustifiable practices have persisted for decades, are indisputably racist and deeply immoral, represent a dark stain on our city's legacy and question its reputation as a diverse and welcoming metropolis.

But here's the good news for Mayor de Blasio and the rest of us: because of the growing attention on this issue; because more and more people outside the community most often victimized are aware of abusive policing and its widespread ill effect;, because the affected constituency is actively mobilized in the movement for sweeping reforms; and because the NYPD work slowdown has exposed the myth of 'broken windows' as a successful crime reduction strategy — all unprecedented developments — New York City has an historic opportunity to fully redress long-standing injustices and to create public safety measures that bring together community groups, public and non-profit service providers, and law enforcement, and that make significant progress toward establishing a truly inclusive and equitable city. The first step is an end to 'broken windows.'

***
Robert Gangi is the director of the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP). Find PROP online at its website and on Facebook and Twitter.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? E-mail editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Bill Cosby of Albany


silver lopez

Sheldon Silver, foreground, and Vito Lopez (photo: AP/Mike Groll)


Since Sheldon Silver's downfall, various members of the Assembly have expressed tears and praise for a man whose progressive politics allowed his supporters to forgive all manner of sin. What's a few broken and brutalized women compared to a choice committee, or a successful bill?

As supporters sentimentalize a man who systematically protected sexual predators over female staff, Silver's legacy comes into horrifying relief: women are expendable for the right policy agenda.

"It's horse-trading with someone's humanity," commented one of several victims of sexual harassment in the Assembly, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Silver was first elected to the Assembly in 1976, the same year Bill Cosby allegedly drugged and raped Theresa Serignese, one of three dozen women who recently came forward after decades of silence. While an evolving social intolerance finally ended Cosby's career, Silver's flourished despite a repeated indifference to rape, assault, and sexual harassment of Assembly staff. When the once powerful Speaker was finally ousted last week, it was not for strong-arming victims into settlements and gagging them with confidentiality clauses. No, in fact Silver is still being sued because a judge found that former Assembly Member Vito Lopez's second set of victims "have a plausible claim that Silver participated in and caused the deprivation of their rights."

Unsurprisingly, a 2013 Quinnipiac poll found that 58% of New Yorkers wouldn't want their daughter to be an intern in the State Legislature.

But the Cosby effect has yet to hit Albany. Since 2003 when Elizabeth Crothers first reported being raped by Silver's aide Michael Boxley, the chamber has been all too happy to let the Speaker deny women their rights, and degrade them further in the process. Boxley himself has survived thanks to Silver's support and the culture of indifference, but only after allegedly raping a second woman and pleading to a lesser charge. He's now a lobbyist in Albany at Brown and Weinraub. In 2012, a deluge of media reports revealed the disturbing details of Lopez's serial predation and the outrageous lengths to which Speaker Silver went to cover it up. And still, members were willing to defend Silver, eject Lopez, and carry on.

In lamenting the Speaker's eventual fall from grace, the otherwise outstanding Chair of the Assembly Health Committee, Richard Gottfried, explained the calculation thus: "There is no one in public life in New York who has fought more effectively, for decades, for almost everything I care about in public policy than Sheldon Silver."

This is the same kind of justification that Cosby's defenders, like Phylicia Rashad, use to excuse the violence and terror he allegedly inflicted on 35 women: "What you're seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And it's a legacy that is so important to the culture."

Where does that leave the women who were brave enough to stand up for themselves, and the potential others who never could?

"I am angry but I am also tired of being angry at the obscene injustice of New York's calls for fair and equal treatment falling on deaf ears in Albany," one victim derided. "I feel deserted"

"You'd think now that he's no longer in power what are people afraid of?" wondered another.

Indeed. Why continue the charade of standing by the Speaker now that he's gone?

Like Cosby, Silver's legacy is inextricably linked to his callous disregard for the women who needed his protection. But the Assembly's doesn't have to be. It's time to end the charade and acknowledge the full reality of Silver's tenure: there is no amount of political rights which can excuse his grievous wrongs. 

***
Alexis Grenell is a Democratic political strategist, she writes a regular column for City & State. You can find her on Twitter @agrenell.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? E-mail editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

What Shelly Did


silver walking

Sheldon Silver (photo: AP/Mike Groll)


It's not very hard to grasp Shelly Silver's strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses especially are on full display. Putting aside legal judgments, Shelly exhibited a kind of moral obtuseness, a grand inarticulateness, and the haughtiness of the ultimate powerful political insider. He tried to control events and people, rather than manage them. Under his leadership there was little warmth or camaraderie, and a metastasizing public discontent with the order of things.

His strengths were many, but understanding them will take a special kind of effort. The public, including perhaps you, Dear Reader, have absorbed a meme about Albany, especially the Legislature, that goes like this: "They're all sheep, crooks, or idiots, and three men in a room run the place." If you believe that maybe you should stop reading here. It's not true, it interferes with an understanding of events, and in the end it slows up needed reforms.

There are a few truths that need repeating. The overwhelming bulk of state elected officials are honest, hardworking, and give a damn. The system is not intrinsically corrupt. Most important things are decided by Members. The real corrupt practices, mostly campaign fundraising, are legal.

In that world, Shelly's hold on the Assembly becomes understandable. Members trusted him to fight for the things they cared about. He was the best and most effective negotiator I've ever met. For almost twenty years I watched him listen carefully to his Conference, and plunge into negotiations with difficult Governors and reactionary Senators and emerge with the best possible deal. In fact, during all this time, the progressive agenda was the child of the Assembly's Democratic Conference and was substantially advanced. If you care about school aid, or the environment, or women's rights, or civil rights, or the minimum wage, or the rights of the disabled, or tax policy, then thank your lucky stars for the Assembly Democrats and Shelly Silver's talents. Rank and file Members knew it and were reluctant to lose him.

Take pre-K, everyone's favorite educational advance. Ten years ago, after many conferences decrying the state's educational program, Shelly came to us with a proposal to use the Assembly's limited budget powers to start pilot pre-K programs largely in New York City. He won a tiny, initial victory, and for several years nurtured the program until Governors, Mayors, Senators, and the educational establishment decided to embrace it as their own. Now it's mainstream.

Take the death penalty. Under Govs. Mario Cuomo and George Pataki this was a powerful political issue. The Assembly repeatedly voted against reinstituting the death penalty, and managed the electoral politics. As public sentiment and the courts shifted, the Assembly quietly oversaw its end.

Many of the same things that Shelly did poorly on the public stage served him well as the Conference's negotiator. He listened, didn't respond, mumbled a little, kept his own counsel, and had exquisite timing. It worked. Given the overwhelming constitutional powers of the Governor (especially on budget matters) and the reactionary tendencies of the Senate, Shelly got the Conference more than its political power deserved.

This mattered to Members more than the legal and ethical cloud that he brought on himself. In a sense they were wrong to stand by him. No democratic institution can survive a collapse of public confidence, and fairly or not, public confidence in Albany has collapsed. In a sense they were not wrong. Most Members have a deep and abiding concern for the things they do that impact peoples lives. The launch of the 2015 budget process wasn't the time to switch leaders.

Shelly's ouster was driven by a rank and file revolt. In the end the appalling moral cloud that attached to the Federal Complaint was more important than any diminished capacity to protect the Assembly's budget agenda. It was the right course of action. But it wasn't accompanied by the kind of editorial board outrage that's everywhere. It was done because it was necessary and important to elevate ethical concerns over narrow legal and political arguments. The short-term effect on budget priorities will just have to be managed.

Shelly's demise should provoke a thorough re-thinking of Albany's laws, culture, and practices. This includes the Legislature to be sure, but needs to apply to the Governor, the State Constitution's bizarre power arrangements, the political system, and to our understanding of the interplay between government and politics in a democracy. It would be nice if that could be done without cartoonish descriptions of elected officials, or state government. Or even Shelly Silver.

***
Richard Brodsky is a former Assemblyman now practicing law and serving as a Senior Fellow at NYU and at Demos.

***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? E-mail editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years