Category Archives: Criminal Justice

October 10, 2009 · 3:00 pm

Rockefeller drug law reforms go into effect

David Paterson NYCNew York’s Gov. David Paterson may be ridiculously unpopular these days, but if anything, his legacy will include accomplishing something that no one could for over 30 years: reforming the draconian Rockefeller drug laws.

The governor visited Brooklyn’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to mark the day the reforms, through a deal reached in Albany last March, went into effect.

“Today is a day for second chances,” Gov. Paterson said to a crowd gathered in the Kings County courtroom.

Anthony Papa, the author of 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way To Freedom, was there and lavished praise on the governor:

Governor Paterson deserves thanks and praise for getting the job done. He has been instrumental and worked tirelessly, first as a state senator from Harlem and then as governor, to make these reforms happen.

But Papa still said much needs to be done:

Now that the laws have been reformed, we have to make sure the changes are done right. Advocates and service providers have jumped in and have been working diligently to prepare for implementation.

The revisions to the law, signed by Paterson in April, now gives judges the option of sending nonviolent offenders to drug treatment and rehabilitation programs rather then sending them to jail. Under the old laws, there were mandatory minimums of 15 years to life, even for first-time offenders. The law that went into effect on Wednesday will also allow lawyers for nonviolent offenders to file petitions to judges for resentencing, although no one is guaranteed this chance. Each case—and advocates estimate there may be up to 1,000 incarcerated individuals eligible—will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

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October 5, 2009 · 11:29 am

Dutch Scholar in New York Studying Communication Between Police and Communities

By Kieran K. Meadows

A Dutch communications scholar is conducting research on the way the city’s police department and its critics get their messages out in the public sphere. Based on the work she’s done so far, she believes that the two groups both feel victimized by the other, and what they say in public sometimes exacerbates the problem.

Michelle Knight, a doctoral candidate at the University of Groeningen in the Netherlands, is in New York working on her dissertation. She has already written the first part—a historical look at the police department and its critics from the 1850s to the present. Now she is specifically examining the Sean Bell shooting and its aftermath as a case study.

“People are always surprised that I am studying this,” Knight said. “I have a passion for the New York City Police Department. I have a passion for New York history.”

“And I have a passion for polarized communication,” she said.

Knight was a master’s student of American Studies on an exchange program at the University of North Carolina in 1999 when Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, died in a hail of 41 police bullets while he stood in his home’s vestibule.

Knight didn’t understand how it was possible for something like that to happen, so she closely followed the case and the ensuing debate. She went to New York and arranged meetings with police union and community leaders, and became fascinated they held such a different reality on the events that had taken place. She eventually wrote her master’s thesis on the history of the police department, which became the first chapter of her dissertation.

In 2006, Knight was back in Holland when she heard about the police shooting of Sean Bell, who was also unarmed, and killed the night before his wedding. This time, police had fired 50 bullets. Again, she followed the aftermath online, through the indictments of the officers involved, their trial and subsequent acquittal. As methodology, she chose to examine every utterance of a stakeholder in the New York Times’ reports.

“Everybody watches the NYPD and the various claims-makers interact in the press, on the stage of the metropolis,” said Greg Donaldson, a professor of communications at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. “But nobody has really studied it in a scholarly way.”

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October 4, 2009 · 4:23 pm

City receives federal grant for criminal justice agencies from US DOJ

Mayor Bloomberg announced on Wednesday that the city has been awarded a federal stimulus competitive grant to enhance its Departments of Probation and Correction, and the Office of Chief Medical examiner.

The $10.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, named for fallen NYPD Officer Edward R. Byrne, will allow the city to hire my probation officers, improve gang intelligence in jails, and add new staff to the DNA lab in the Medical Examiner’s office. John Feinblatt, the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator spoke about how the money will continue to help keep crime low:

“We have been able to drive down crime to historic lows by finding innovative new ways to prevent crime, among both adults and juveniles,” said John Feinblatt, the Mayor’s Criminal Justice Coordinator. “This grant will allow us to build on the success of the NYPD’s Real Time Crime Center, strengthen our oversight of mentally ill probationers, expand our DNA analysis capabilities, and keep more kids out of trouble.”

The city is the only state or local jurisdiction to receive three different grants from the Byrne national program. The Department of Probation will get $6.6 million, the Department of Correction $2.5 million, and the Medical Examiner’s office $986,000. Including these grants, the city has now received a total of $82.7 million in stimulus money for criminal justice and public safety purposes.

But perhaps it was the Medical Examiner’s office that needed more money. It’s interesting to note that according to the city’s own “CPR: Agency Performance Ratings” from the Mayor’s Office of Operations, the Departments of Probation and Correction have seen their performance improving or stable, while the Office of Chief Medical Examiner has seen its performance vastly declining via 83.3 percent of the indicators used.

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September 27, 2009 · 5:13 pm

NYC homicides on pace to set record-low number

Crime continues to fall in New York City, the mayor and the commissioner of the NYPD said this month, and they boasted about how New York is still the safest big city in the country, according to new data from the FBI’s Crime in the United States, the Uniform Crime Report from 2008.

Criminologists often say that the murder rate is the best indicator when forecasting overall crime. If this is the case, then New York City is doing quite well this year (that is, if you can ever say that when you’re talking about murders). The city is on pace in to hit a record-low number of homicides in 2009—while the number stood at 325 as of Sept. 18, the NYPD projects it will rise to 457 by year’s end. While still a lot, the number is the lowest in nearly 50 years since the police department began keeping the data in 1962. The previous low was 497 in 2007.

The high was in 1990, at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, when there were 2,245 homicides. That year was also in the midst of a hard-hitting economic downturn in the city, and unemployment was on the rise. Perhaps that’s why some criminologists are thankful about this year’s numbers, but still nervous about what is to come. The city is again in a recession in 2009 and unemployment jumped to 10.3 percent last month, hitting double digits for the first time in 16 years. The unemployment rate is not expected to hit its peak for at least another year.

One also begins to wonder about crime statistics kept by the city—especially in a year when the mayor is up for re-election.

While we should all be happy about crime being lower, it is interesting to note that the NYPD’s rate of the number of homicides solved in a year, compared to number of murders in that year, stands at about 70 percent, which is the same as it was about 15 years ago. So can the mayor and the NYPD really take so much credit? (Not to make light of this all, but I’m assuming that topping the list of unsolved homicides is the very first murder recorded in New York City from 400 years ago.)

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March 22, 2009 · 10:58 pm

Lawsuits filed for alleged RNC police misconduct

More than 800 people were arrested at last year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. Now, many are filing lawsuits alleging misconduct on the part of St. Paul police and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department. It is the first major action taken since last September’s convention.

Also, during the the week of the RNC, nearly 50 journalists were arrested while attempting to cover the protests in the streets outside the Xcel Center. Be sure to read this article I wrote about the 2008 RNC that addresses the legal restrictions of newsgathering at demonstrations.

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March 10, 2009 · 4:59 pm

“Justice Center a Success, But Budget Cuts Loom” – in the Brooklyn Rail

Been busy as usual, juggling many stories… but I wanted to direct your attention to a print piece I did for the Brooklyn Rail about the Red Hook Community Justice Center: “Justice Center a Success, But Budget Cuts Loom” — Hope you enjoy the story.

Desiree Pardo strolled into the courtroom six months after she was arrested for possession of a small amount of crack cocaine with a reason to be happy. She had struggled with drug addiction for 17 years, but this morning she had tested negative for all substances. Three large windows let sunlight illuminate the clean white walls of the small courtroom. Pardo sat in the second row of polished wooden benches and maneuvered to get a good view of the judge. “This man is a good man,” she said. “He gave me a chance.”

The 38-year-old Pardo had been attending a court-monitored drug-counseling program five days a week in the same building as the court.

Her success story is one of many at the Red Hook Community Justice Center, which was developed in response to high crime rates and soaring unemployment in the isolated Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1980s and 90s. The center housed the first multi-jurisdictional court in the nation; a single judge, Alex M. Calabrese, hears criminal, civil, and family matters. Because it is a problem-solving court, Judge Calabrese has a variety of sentencing tools at his disposal aside from jail time—including on-site social services and programs. Sentences often incorporate substance abuse treatment, counseling, and education. In addition, many offenders must perform community service as a means of reparation to the community that was harmed by their actions.

Now with the downturn in the economy affecting the state’s budget, the center has begun to feel the squeeze.

Read more…

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December 15, 2008 · 10:36 pm

The Legal Restrictions of Newsgathering at Demonstrations

Journalists Arrested While Doing Their Job: The Legal Restrictions of Newsgathering at Demonstrations

By Kieran K. Meadows

Inside the Xcel Center the first week of September, the Republican National Convention was finally getting underway after a slow start because of Hurricane Gustav. Outside the convention center on the streets of St. Paul, Minnesota, a completely different story was unfolding. Thousands of protesters had converged in St. Paul to take part in demonstrations or engage in acts of in civil disobedience. More than 800 people were arrested, including many reporters who were covering the convention story.

“If you were a journalist covering the protesters, then you were subject to any number of these tactics,” said Sharif Abdel Kouddous, referring to police crowd control tactics such as concussion grenades, tear gas, mace, and police on horseback. Kouddous, a producer of the nationally syndicated TV/radio news program Democracy Now!, was arrested twice while covering the protests.

“It made it difficult and dangerous to be on the street,” he said. “The fact that you had a camera with a press ID didn’t seem to matter.”

During the week of the RNC, police detained or arrested nearly 50 journalists, including independent media and traditional media journalists, according to the Minnesota Independent.  Some were arrested violently and sustained injuries inflicted by police, actions that drew a sharp rebuke from the organization Reporters Without Borders. Some journalists were released right away, but many spent at least a night in jail. These events illustrate the challenges journalists face in covering this type of story. A series of legal questions arise around issues of censorship, prior restraint and newsgathering restrictions all related to First Amendment rights.

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October 24, 2008 · 5:18 pm

After 18 Years Patrolling The South Bronx, An Unusual Morning

By Kieran K. Meadows

Veteran 42nd Precinct Officer Tony Panos and his partner, Officer Greg Zukoff, agreed it was an unusual morning Wednesday as they patrolled the Morrisania section of the South Bronx. They handled only one call – or “job” – a landlord-tenant dispute at the beginning of their shift in sector “Henry,” the eighth sector in the precinct. Since that call: nothing. Officer Panos admitted the morning shift was usually a little slower, but he was still surprised by the lack of calls.

“I haven’t seen it like this in a long time,” he said. “We can’t even back someone up. This is unusually quiet today,” he said. To illustrate his point, he mentioned there was at least one major gun job per day.

Officer Panos, 38, clean-shaven with greased jet-black hair combed and parted on his right, crossed one leg over the other. He looked like he was sitting in a porch chair rather than the front passenger seat of a police squad car.

Since 1990, Officer Panos and Officer Zukoff have patrolled the hilly Morrisania in the South Bronx. They have witnessed dramatic changes over that period. Morrisania is still considered a high-crime area but crime is down over 65 percent in the neighborhood since the early 1990s. Back then it looked like rubble or a war zone, they said. Vacant overgrown lots, burnt-out buildings and abandoned cars on every block have now been replaced by numerous private and public developments. Continue reading →

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