By Sarah Monaghan, Kellyann Bock, Michael Rempel, & Olive Lu

Spanning more than four decades, how has the footprint of New York’s criminal legal system changed? This comprehensive report explores the changing landscape of law enforcement in New York State from 1980 to 2023. It analyzes trends in arrests, prosecutorial declinations, criminal convictions, and sentencing practices, with a focus on regional and racial disparities.

Key Takeaways

● Statewide Arrest Trends

● After varying patterns by charge and region from 1980 to 2010, arrest rates declined significantly from 2010 to 2020, with a modest resurgence from 2020 to 2023.

● Misdemeanor arrests in NYC increased nearly fourfold from 1980 to 2010, dropped by 75% from 2010 to 2020 but rose by 40% from 2020 to 2023.

● Felony arrests decreased across all regions from 1980 to 2020, with a modest uptick in recent years.

● Charge-Specific Arrest Patterns

● Drug arrests in NYC peaked at over 128,000 in 2000, before falling to under 18,000 in 2023.

● Prostitution and fare evasion arrests in NYC saw drastic declines. Prostitution declined 99% from 1985 to 2023, and fare evasion declined 99% from 1994 to 2021, before a 2021-to-2023 uptick.

● DUI remained a leading charge outside NYC, comprising 18%-19% of suburban and upstate misdemeanors in 2023.

● Prosecutorial Declinations

● After changing only modestly until 2017, district attorneys’ offices in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn declined to prosecute increasing numbers of low level misdemeanor arrests from 2017 to 2023.

● Select low level arrests for transit fare evasion, prostitution, trespass, and marijuana possession saw especially significant increases in declinations in the Bronx, Manhattan, and/or Brooklyn.

● Sentencing Trends: Jail and prison sentences for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies peaked around 2000 before decreasing significantly by 2023. Violent felony convictions increasingly resulted in prison sentences across all regions.

● Racial and Ethnic Disparities: While shrinking in some areas since 1980 (e.g., felony arrest disparities narrowed), the study found that sizable Black-white and Hispanic-white disparities on most metrics examined.

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2024. 45p.

By Arthur H. Garrison

This article uses five years of data, 2015–2019, from the Washington Post dataset on police use of deadly force and enhances the data with 21 situational and 8 police perceived threat measure variables to put in context the use of force and the disproportionate incidents involving Blacks compared to other races. Rather than comparing percentage race outcomes of police use of force to general population or behavior proxy measures the benchmark of situational contexts of police use of force is used to interpret race percentage distributions by race within the same context. Under this analysis, the top three situations that result in police deadly force involved 1) an assault or civilian call for help, 2) a call for domestic violence, and 3) a police officer being attacked. When viewing police shootings by situation and race percentage distribution, the data shows that police use of force is differentiated. Within the same situations Blacks were more likely to be shot and killed than Whites. Blacks were more likely to be shot by the police in a traffic stop, were more likely to shot by the police mistaking them as armed, were more likely to be shot if they are perceived to be suffering mental illness and were more likely to be shot if the police are responding to call for illegal drug activity than other races in the same situations and contexts that resulted in police use of deadly force.

Journal of Race and Policy 16(1) 2022