Broken windows policing a recipe for race-based enforcement, Legal Aid Society warns in new analysis

Source: New York Daily News

Broken windows policing a recipe for race-based enforcement, Legal Aid Society warns in new analysis

Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News
Tue, March 29, 2022, 8:47 PM

NEW YORK — Broken windows leads to broken trust of the police in minority communities, the Legal Aid Society says, citing new NYPD data showing 91% of typical quality-of-life arrests last year were of Black and Latino suspects.

The 10-page analysis by the public defenders group comes as Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell have announced a renewed focus on quality of life crimes as they try to address what they consider a sense of disorder in pockets of the city.

“Decades of research have shown that this style of policing produces little to no public safety benefit while further alienating intensively policed communities, criminalizing poverty and exacerbating racial disparities in the criminal legal system,” says the Legal Aid Society report.

Legal Aid analyzed 2021 arrest data for public urination, public drinking, dice games, driving without a license, fare evasion and an “unspecified” offense category that included 335 instances of violations such as disorderly conduct. The review found a striking racial breakdown.

Out of 1,524 cases, Blacks were arrested 854 times, or 56%, while 485 Latinos comprised 32%. Another 48, or 3%, were listed as non-white, while whites were arrested 129 times, or 8.5%. Eight people arrested did not have their race listed.

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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/broken-windows-policing-recipe-race-004700569.html