NYPD No Longer Making Arrests For Boozing And Urinating in Public


According to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, the idea to use summons instead of arrests for low-level crime originated in District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr’s office. Though “most” offenders will get a summon, some may still end up in handcuffs.

In fact, many of the people who were previously arrested for these kinds of low-level crimes, rather than getting a summons, were arrested because of an outstanding warrant—but they were often arrested for the new offense, adding another arrest to their record. That will no longer be the case, the DAs office said. If someone has a felony warrant for a crime like burglary, and they are stopped for an open container, they’ll be taken to jail on the warrant, but will only get a summons for the open container violation.

And if someone has an open summons warrant—let’s say they didn’t pay their summons the last time they got caught littering and then they get stopped for that again—they’ll be “detained,” according to the DA’s office, and brought to court to face a judge on that summonses and the new one. But they won’t be arrested.

Ms. Mark-Viverito has argued that old warrants themselves are bogging down the criminal justice system, and in her State of the City called for wiping out more than 700,000 of them in the city, for low-level crimes like the ones Mr. Vance will stop prosecuting.

In 2014, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson tried something similar by saying he would no longer prosecute low-level marijuana crimes. Manhattan’s policy change will being March 7. They estimate it’ll result in about 10,000 fewer arrests per year.

Source: observer.com

 



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