Someone asked about why we don’t use broken windows anymore. I wrote all this based on my time in law enforcement before I realized it was a locked thread. Lock or downvote, but I took the time to give context.
Proportionality, and police trust. Before I get taken to task for an opinion, I worked as an attorney at a district attorney’s office and I worked on this issue at Bloomberg’s office and summarized 2000 pages of case law as to why it’s incredibly expensive, and policy sabatoge, to continue to enforce broken windows given how case law has evolved to punish an open case.
Let’s say a person jay walks in 2008, and is stopped by a cop. For many years marijuana posession, New York penal law 221.05 (a violation) was ratcheted up to a misdemeanor (New York penal law 221.10). Both involve the same amount of marijuana - but the difference between a ticket and an arrest is whether the marijuana is ‘Open, Exposed, or Burning.’ Because the fourth amendment is not largely understood by most, cops would get people to empty their pockets during stops, promising leniency for anything found. in law, cops don’t have to be honest surrounding an events prior to an arrest in soliciting information; same after the Miranda rights are read. People would take out their marijuana, and that jay walking questioning, just turned into an arrest.
Policy makers justified this by giving folks ACDs en masse for the first arrest. And ACD is an Adjournment in Contemplation of dismissal. Essentialy: plea conditionally guilty to this crime, and as long as you don’t get arrested again, you’ll be free, and this disappears. Sounds fair right?
The plain fact is, an arrest, doesn’t take *that* much depending on police discretion. It’s being brought into custody, not a conviction. Let’s just ignore that a wide drag net was cast where arrests and stops were increased in some neighborhoods and not others - greatly increasing the chances for arrest for minor crimes.
The real harm is for people who don’t even get arrested. You see, even having an open case, you’re not protected by NYS sealing statues. Protections are reserved for individuals who have a favorable outcome. A pending case (like and ACD that waits up to a year before it’s dismissed) means any one can discriminate against you on that basis. Parents have lost children, medical students have gotten kicked out, individuals have been black listed from the army (an economic ladder for many persons of color), and a whole slew of other issues stemming from employment to immigrant to credit to housing). The case law is robust.
And that’s just from a pending ACD. God help you if you get that second arrest during the ACD, because now you have a conviction (remember that plea to an ACD earlier? And a new arrest.
Additionally, prior to bail reform, small misdemeanors permitted folks to be held in pre trial detention. Kalief Browder was held three years *in jail* prior to a trial, for an allegation of a stolen back pack. Okay... intense. Fact: when the final ‘speedy trial dates’ were running up, prosecutors realized they lost their main witnesses years ago. Kid had been held for years and folks didn’t even have the witnesses still in the loop. I believe defense failed the people as much as the prosecution did here - but reforms have been made, and this tragedy of justice acknowledged.
Anyway. Broken windows had a place in NYC, and provided information. I don’t think it was evil or racist or anything like that when it was started. But shit changes and information gets added, and it started becoming a lot of things it wasn’t intended to. The most egregious requiring a lawyer, 2,000 pages of case law, and my summer in order to bring to light to policy makers. We out grew it as a tool to keep people safe - and that’s all I really care about as a person who worked in law enforcement.