TESTIMONY OF:

Brooklyn Defender Services

Presented before the New York City Council

Committee on Public Safety

Oversight Hearing on Reducing the Responsibilities of the NYPD

September 27, 2021

Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS) provides multi-disciplinary and people-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal services, social work support and advocacy to nearly 30,000 people and their families in Brooklyn every year. Many of the people that we serve live in policed and surveilled communities and are regularly subjected to biased behavior on the part of the NYPD. BDS thanks Chairs Adams and the Committee on Public Safety for holding this important discussion on reducing the responsibilities of the NYPD.

New York City is one of the most progressive cities in the world. Yet for too long, the City has invested in systems that have worked to surveil and control low-income neighborhoods and communities of color rather than investing to uplift communities and families. Every year, BDS represents tens of thousands of people in the criminal, family, and civil court systems of Kings County. Many of the people we serve, primarily Black and brown New Yorkers, have been subjected to abuse and misconduct by members of the NYPD. We have joined our communities in the call for meaningful, top-down change to the NYPD for years. However, we have instead seen a parade of broken promises and toothless “reform” proposals that have ultimately done little to affect NYPD conduct or improve the lives of people here in New York City.

Our City has the largest police department in the United States and one of the highest ratios of officers per capita.¹ While the Mayor and this Council have committed to shifting responsibilities and funding away from the NYPD, we continue to see NYPD members responding to mental health emergencies,² violently arresting protesters,³ and patrolling schools.⁴ Despite community calls for divestment from policing, this Council approved a $200 million dollar increase in the NYPD budget for FY22.⁵ It is time that this City value the experiences and needs of its community members over government surveillance that neither protects nor serves them.

The City Council can and should exercise its authority to strip funding and responsibilities from the Department. The NYPD is an omnipresent force in certain NYC neighborhoods, yet it is abundantly clear that they do not offer a solution to violence. Rather, they are drivers of violence, sources of unrest and anxiety, and destructive and demoralizing forces straining the social fabric of neighborhoods.

Reducing the responsibilities of NYPD

There are many ways the scope and budget of NYPD could be significantly and quickly reduced without impacting safety, namely firing officers credibly accused of misconduct, eliminating mass surveillance starting with the NYPD gang database, and disbanding specialized units— particularly the Vice Enforcement Division—with histories of abuse and rogue operations, and investing in community-based solutions to respond to people in crisis.

Officers who assault, harass, maim, and even kill New Yorkers, including on-camera, have remained on the job. There have been countless City Council hearings on abusive, biased, and harmful police practices. The NYPD refuses to meaningfully engage with communities, defenders, or advocates, routinely leaving these hearings into their behavior before the public can comment. Despite the ongoing and demonstrably racist practice of Stop and Frisk, deployed even more frequently now in the name of gun possession enforcement, the City falsely claims that it has ended the racist policy of stop and frisk. This is a shocking misrepresentation of the current state of policing in our City.

Reforming the NYPD has been attempted many times in the past, but the Department only makes a mockery of introspection and change. They amend their Patrol Guide to reflect the changes demanded by the public only to fail to discipline officers who break the rules. They performatively convene panels and hire outside experts to advise them on policy only to maintain the status quo. The time of real transformative change New Yorkers need requires taking power away from the NYPD and empowering the people of this City.

We offer the following recommendations to reduce the responsibilities of the NYPD:

1. Eliminate Mass Surveillance starting with the Criminal Group Database

Since 2007, the City’s NYPD Operating Budget has grown by more than a billion dollars. Recently disclosed records have revealed that during that same period, the NYPD spent more than $159 million on surveillance tools through an unmonitored surveillance slush fund.⁶ At least 15% of the budget bloat between 2007 and today can be attributed to outsized spending on military-grade technologies. However, despite all this spending, the NYPD cannot credibly point to significantly enhanced impacts on crime solving, crime prevention, or terrorism prevention.

Instead, this addiction to mass surveillance has created a City of hypervisibility. For no one is this more true than the Black and brown young men who are routinely the target of the NYPD’s gaze.

A prime example of the racially-biased surveillance glut in our City and the need to rein in the NYPD is the secretive, internal list maintained by the NYPD called the Criminal Group Database—also known as the Gang Database. Within the Gang Database, the Department labels almost exclusively young Black and Latinx New Yorkers as gang members. Over 99% of the people on the database are non-white.⁷ There is no independent oversight of who is placed in this database, individuals do not need to be convicted of any crime to be placed on it, and there is no way to challenge gang designations. Criteria for designation include “living in a known gang area” and “association with gang members.” According to the Grassroots Advocates for Neighborhood Groups and Solutions (G.A.N.G.S.) Coalition, between 2003 and 2013 about 30% of people added to the database were children, some as young as 12.

Even in instances where the database correctly identifies someone as a gang member, police cataloging of young people does not enhance community safety. The NYPD surveils children and young adults, sometimes for years, without alerting parents that their children are in trouble or providing meaningful interventions. Mass surveillance, such as through the Domain Awareness System and these types of covert gang operations, commands enormous budgetary expenses without measurable improvements in safety.

Identified gang members are targeted for harassment and abuse by police. They are charged with inchoate crimes and crime by association, rather than the commission of specific acts, and warehoused for complex prosecutions. Massive NYPD resources are spent building cases in back rooms instead of improving the lives of young people and their communities. Gang policing criminalizes affiliation with friends, relatives, and neighbors without achieving community safety. This practice is costly in both human and fiscal terms.

The City Council should reclaim oversight of the NYPD’s surveillance spending, move to eliminate the Gang Database, and rein in horrifically abusive and violative NYPD gang policing practices. BDS strongly supports the preconsidred introduction by Council Member Antonio Reynoso, which would abolish the Criminal Group Database.

2. Shutter the NYPD Crime Laboratory, Remove DNA Testing Responsibility from the OCME, and Establish an Independent Laboratory Similar to Houston’s.

Since at least 2009, with the publication of the National Academy of Sciences’ Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States Report,⁸ experts and academics nationwide have touted the need to establish independent forensic laboratories. The arguments in support of this move are well-established, oft-repeated, and uncontroversial. The NYPD crime laboratory should be closed, DNA testing responsibilities should be removed from the scandal-ridden Office of Chief Medical Examiner, and an independent laboratory should be established for New York City.

3. Abolish the Vice Enforcement Division and other specialized units

The Vice Enforcement Division—or Vice Squad—and other similar, specialized units with vast histories of abuse and misconduct must be abolished. The Vice Squad is primarily tasked with policing offenses deemed immoral, such as consensual sex work, drug possession, and gambling. In reality, Vice officers have a long history of exploiting and harassing sex workers, sexually assaulting people, and falsely arresting Black and brown people perceived to be sex workers or clients.⁹ The abuses committed by officers in these units are rampant, at they often operate without even minimal oversight—officers work undercover, without partners and without body-worn cameras.

It is not enough to merely reshuffle members of Vice or rename the unit in a symbolic gesture, as has been the case with the notoriously violent Anti-Crime Unit. The units should be disbanded entirely, NYPD members determined to be culpable of misconduct must be fired, and the abusive and coercive methods of policing exemplified by these units must be extinguished. The actions of Vice Squad officers—and their condonation by the Department—do not occur in a vacuum.

They are representative of a culture of impunity and institutional cover for misconduct and abuse. The City Council should immediately investigate the Vice Squad and pursue its disbanding to protect the people of New York.

4. Remove NYPD from all schools

Stationing police officers in schools has not been shown to make schools safer, and research has shown that police presence and metal detectors can in fact significantly decrease a student’s perception of safety at school.¹⁰ School policing often targets common adolescent behavior, bringing young people into the criminal legal system, and making them more susceptible to future contact with the system. Criminal cases can lead to orders of protection that may bar students from school buildings. And these cases bring with them several other collateral consequences that can serve to derail a student’s education or future employment prospects. Studies have shown that when students are arrested, they are less likely to graduate from high school, and have worse academic performance in school.¹¹ And these outcomes are most acute for Black and Latinx students, who are more likely than white students to face harsh discipline and to have interactions with police at schools.¹²

Though it may seem on paper that moving school safety agents from the NYPD to the DOE takes the city a step closer to having police-free schools, our City’s schools must shift to a culture where school staff, not police officers or security personnel, take the lead in addressing and preventing student misbehavior, and do so in a nonpunitive way, that does not serve to further disconnect students from the schools they attend. Rather than continuing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into school policing, the City Council should instead invest in mental health and other supports for schools that will increase the health and well-being of New York City’s children and communities.

5. Remove the Police Commissioner's exclusive authority over police discipline

When police are not held accountable, victims of police misconduct—primarily Black and brown New Yorkers—suffer twice over. First from the police practices inflicted on them, and then again through the City’s failure to deliver any semblance of accountability to their abusers. As defenders, we see officers with long histories of civil rights abuses continue to police the same streets, harm community members, and bring new cases for prosecution. We also see these harms compounded by retaliatory actions taken by officers against people who lodge complaints against them or their colleagues, discouraging future victims from coming forward at all.

This behavior is enabled in part due to the complicity of the police commissioner, who can—and regularly does—reject and downgrade CCRB and internal recommendations for disciplining officers. One analysis of released CCRB data found 260 instances, between 2014 and 2018 alone, where the Commissioner overruled, downgraded, or dismissed cases where serious misconduct by police was substantiated by the CCRB and charges were recommended.¹³ In 2019, the rate of agreement between the CCRB and the NYPD commissioner was 51% for most cases. In more serious cases of alleged misconduct, it was less 32%.¹⁴ A New York Times investigation found that as of November 2020, Police Commissioner Shae had imposed the CCRB’s recommended penalty in 2 out of 28 cases in which charges were brought.¹⁵ There are currently no meaningful mechanisms for holding the NYPD accountable when the Police Commissioner retains veto power over any internal findings and recommendations for discipline.

We commend the Council for passing Resolution 1538-2021 Resolution calling on the New York State Legislature to pass, and the Governor to sign, S5252/A6012, which would remove the New York City Police Commissioner's exclusive authority over police discipline. We encourage the Council to continue to press pressure the State legislature to pass this legislation and empower the CCRB to hold officers accountable.

6. Remove NYPD from mental health emergency response

For years, BDS has called for a non-police response to mental health emergencies and the expansion of mobile crisis teams and the removal of NYPD from all mental health responses. The City has attempted to change the response to emergency calls about people experiencing serious mental illness through legislation of EMS responses, including the Mayor’s EMS pilot programs and Int 2210. As we feared, NYPD officers are still responding to mental health emergencies in most cases.¹⁶ Allowing the NYPD to continue responding to these calls—even with additional training—does not address the real danger that police pose to people experiencing mental health crises, nor does it prevent the criminalization of mental illness. Police are not mental health experts or medical professionals, nor should they be tasked with filling this role.

Response to mental health emergency calls must be handled by medical professions or clinicians who are trained in de-escalation methods. When NYPD responds the result is far too often that instead of the person in distress receiving medical care and treatment, they are arrested and housed on Rikers Island. Rikers Island is the largest mental health provider in NYC – and rates of self-harm and suicide are increasing.¹⁷ This is true, despite the creation of diversion centers in the city, which are underutilized.¹⁸ Now, more than ever, given the escalating humanitarian crisis on Rikers Island, we cannot afford to have a police response to people experiencing a mental health emergency that will increase the chances of someone being sent to jail instead of to the medical treatment they may need.

7. Legislate accountability measures for improper NYPD involvement

Any measure to remove responsibility from NYPD must be coupled with accountability mechanisms to ensure NYPD complies with the spirit of the law. Any new legislation must include a mechanism to report on which agencies and are involved and what will happen if NYPD inappropriately responds or escalates. There must be clear accountability measures for wrongful police response included in any legislation intended to eliminate NYPD involvement.

Conclusion

Piecemeal reforms such as those implemented in the past will not meaningfully change the NYPD and continuing to task the NYPD with its own reform and enforcement is destined to preserve the status quo. In order to meaningfully change the Department, the City Council must use its authority to prioritize the safety and needs of New Yorkers over the self-serving preferences of the NYPD by creating structural change, reducing the responsibilities of the NYPD, and divesting from the police.

We thank the Committee for this time and for accepting my testimony on this critical issue. Should you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact Kathleen McKenna, Senior Policy Social Worker at kmckenna@bds.org.

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¹ Fola Akinnibi, NYC’s violent crime is up; So is the City’s police budget, Bloomberg City Lab + Equity, May 6, 2021, Available online at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-06/new-york-city-s-police-budget-is- increasing-again.

² Greg Smith, Cops Still Handling Most 911 Mental Health Calls Despite Efforts to Keep them Away, The City, July 22, 2021, Available online at https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/7/22/22587983/nypd-cops-still-responding-to-most- 911-mental-health-calls

³ https://patch.com/new-york/upper-east-side-nyc/9-arrested-protests-outside-met-gala-police-say

⁴ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/17/new-york-city-reassign-5000-school-safety-officers

⁵ Daniel Villarreal, New York Police get $200M budget increase after crime spikes 22 percent in year, Newsweek, June 30, 2021, Available online https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-police-get-200m-budget-increase-after- crime-spikes-22-percent-year-1605840.

⁶ Sidney Fussell, The NYPD had a secret fund for surveillance tools, Wired, August 18, 2021, Available online at https://www.wired.com/story/nypd-secret-fund-surveillance-tools/.

⁷ Daryl Kahn, New York City’s Gang Database Is 99% People of Color, Chief of Detectives Testifies, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, June 14, 2018, Available online at https://jjie.org/2018/06/14/new-york-citys-gang-database-is-99- people-of-color-chief-of-detectives-testifies/.

8 https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf

9 Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien, NYPD Cops Cash In On Sex Trade Arrests With Little Evidence, While Black and Brown New Yorkers Pay the Price, ProPublica, Dec. 12, 2020, available at: https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd- cops-cash-in-on-sex-trade-arrests-with-little-evidence-while-black-and-brown-new-yorkers-pay-the-price

¹⁰ Nathan James & Gail McCallion, School Resource Officers: Law Enforcement Officers in Schools, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE (June 26, 2013); Matthew T. Theriot & John G. Orme, School Resource Officers and Students’ Feelings of Safety at School, 14 YOUTH VIOLENCE & JUV. JUSTICE 130-146 (2016).

¹¹ Jason P. Nance, Students, Police, and the School-To-Prison Pipeline, 93 WASH. U. L. REV. 919 (2016).

¹² Madina Touré, Report: Black, Latino Youths Still Getting Arrested at Disproportionate Rates in NYC, POLITICO (July 13, 2020), https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2020/07/13/report-black-latino-youths-still-getting-arrested-at-disproportionate-rates-in-nyc-1300084.

¹³ Mollie Simon, Lena V. Groeger, Eric Umansky and Adriana Gallardo, What it looks like when the New York City Police Commissioner has ”Unchecked Power” over officer discipline, Propublica, December 11, 2020, Available at https://projects.propublica.org/nypd-unchecked-power/.

14 Id.

¹⁵ Ashley Southall, Ali Watkins and Blacki Migliozzi, A watchdog accused officers of serious misconduct. Few were punished. The New York Times, November 15, 2020, Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/nyregion/ccrb-nyc-police-misconduct.html.

¹⁶ Greg Smith, Cops Still Handling Most 911 Mental Health Calls Despite Efforts to Keep them Away, The City, July 22, 2021, Available online at https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/7/ 22/22587983/nypd-cops-still-responding-to-most- 911-mental-health-calls

¹⁷ George Joseph and Raven Blau, Self-Harm is exploding in New York City jails, Internal numbers show, Gothamist, September 7, 2021, Available online: https://gothamist.com/news/self-harm-exploding-new-york-city- jails-internal-numbers-show-rikers

¹⁸ Greg Smith and Reuven Blau, Failure to Thrive: NYC’s $100 Million ‘Diversion Centers’ for Mentally Ill Sit Empty or Barely Used, The City, May 9, 2021, Available online: https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/5/9/22426250/thrive -nyc-nypd-diversion-centers-for-mentally-ill-sit-empty