As nationwide talks and protests continue around the nature and future of US police, a new brief from drug reform advocates reveals that New York City — where many of the country’s biggest protests have occurred — remains a hotbed for low-level drug arrests of mostly Black and Brown residents, costing city coffers millions.
An analysis of 2019 city data released this week by the Drug Policy Alliance shows that drug enforcement arrests and violations remained high and racially skewed in the months leading up to the Covid-19 crisis and current national reckoning around police violence and over-incarceration toward Black and Brown lives.
The brief, released in support of a call by the Communities United for Police Reform for NYC’s mayor and City Council to reallocate at least $1 billion of the NYPD’s 2021 expense budget toward “core needs in Black, Latinx and other NYC communities of color,” found that police performed or issued more than 21,000 drug enforcement arrests and violations last year in NYC alone.
According to city data compiled by the brief, two thirds of these only concerned the possession of marijuana (or cannabis, as it’s often known outside legal spheres) or drug paraphernalia; in addition, nearly 15,000 summonses were issued by the NYPD over that prohibited plant in 2019, “accounting for 17% of all criminal summonses issued citywide that year,” DPA researchers wrote.
What’s more, they noted, “The estimated cost of just the police hours associated with drug arrests and violations alone in 2019 in NYC is $32.2 million. However, the true cost associated with NYPD drug arrests and violations in 2019 is likely closer to $96 million, or 6% of the NYPD patrol services expense budget.”
The brief also concluded that the city spent an estimated $456 million enforcing “low-level broken windows offenses,” accounting for 28.5% of all NYPD arrests and violations issued last year.
Melissa Moore, New York State Deputy Director for the Drug Policy Alliance, commented in an email, “The brief shows the vast scope of NYPD engagement in broken windows policing that should end immediately to prevent further harm to communities and also because it is massively wasteful. As the Mayor, Speaker [Corey] Johnson, and Council members are seeking where to make cuts in the city budget, this brief highlights areas of policing that should clearly be on the chopping block.”
Moore said her organization regularly monitors enforcement data but “did swift work” to assemble the brief in recent days “to support the work of the Communities United for Police Reform coalition, of which DPA is an active member.”
In response to increasing calls to defund the NYPD from the coalition and numerous other social advocacy, public interest, and workers groups, “We wanted to provide concrete information on the tremendous resources that are spent to criminalize New Yorkers for low-level offenses that are not about public safety,” Moore explained.
“In the face of a significant budget shortfall – and a pandemic that is disproportionately killing New Yorkers of color, plus rampant police violence that is targeted at people of color — it’s unconscionable that there’s even a debate about the need to shift resources to center health and community well-being over brutal criminalization.”
"The drug war has been waged on Black and Brown communities since its inception, and the police have acted as its foot soldiers. They have, and always will, constantly target us," said Hiawatha Collins, a community leader and Board Member at VOCAL-NY (one of several groups currently helping to occupy City Hall) in a statement.
"We can't talk about the resources people who use drugs need without ending the racist policies and policing of our bodies and neighborhoods,” Collins continued. “It's time to defund the NYPD by at least $1 billion this year, and invest in housing, harm reduction, healthcare, and social services. We can't wait a second longer as we continue to die from preventable overdoses at historic numbers."