Broken windows policing targets communities of color, Legal Aid says

NEW YORK (PIX11) — The crackdown on “quality-of-life” crimes by the police disproportionately targets communities of color, according to a report by the Legal Aid Society released on Wednesday.

According to an analysis of police data by the nonprofit, 91% of the 1,524 broken windows arrests it reviewed were of Black, Latinx and other non-white New Yorkers. The arrests were for charges that include driving without a valid license, loitering, MTA fare evasion, open container, public urination and other various broken-windows offenses charged as violations.

Advocates slammed the initiative, saying it resembles the Giuliani-era broken windows policing.

NYPD officers focus on violations, such as dice games, drinking and open-air selling of narcotics as part of a new Quality-of-Life Enforcement Initiative, Commissioner Keechant Sewell said on Mar. 23. She said this is not a return to Stop, Question, and Frisk, nor is it “policing for numbers.”

“This enforcement will be responsive to community complaints and concerns, and will address the violent crime patterns officers and detectives are confronting,” she said in a statement. “This is precision-policing aimed at reducing violence in the neighborhoods seeing disproportionate numbers of shootings – and it is what the public is demanding.”

Spokespeople from the Legal Aid Society said they have serious concerns about whether the police can carry out this initiative lawfully without further alienating residents of communities of color.

“The NYPD should not be doubling down on this debunked policing strategy that doesn’t make us any safer and only further exacerbates racial disparities in New York’s criminal legal system,” Molly Griffard, staff attorney with the Cop Accountability Project at the Legal Aid Society, said.

City officials still believe that the initiative, combined with gun violence-focused neighborhood safety teams, will help reduce crime.