It’s bad enough that more than 50,000 people were arrested last year in NYC in what were called “low-level marijuana charges,” but we should also note why there are so many pot arrests. The Drug Police Alliance suggests that the increased arrests are due to the controversial “stop and frisk” policy.
The arrests have soared in the last 10 years. With the 2011 numbers, the New York Police Department has made more than 227,000 bottom-rung marijuana possession arrests in the last five years — slightly more than the entire span from 1978 to 2001, according to an analysis by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine.
So, there were more arrests in the last 5 years for pot, than there were in the 23 years from 1978 to 2001.
Think about that.
Stephen Glover said he was standing outside a Bronx job-training center in November, sharing a box of mints with friends, when police came up to him, asked him whether he had anything in his pockets that could hurt them and searched them without asking his permission. They found the remains of two marijuana cigarettes in his pockets, he said.
Please tell me how that search is even constitutional?
And to make matters worse, these arrests cost NYC about $75,000,000.
It's difficult to put a price tag on the city's arrests, but Levine has estimated it cost an estimated $75 million in 2011 to process, jail and prosecute the low-level arrests in New York. That figure was a compilation of estimated court costs, police manpower and jail time, averaging about $1,500 per arrest — a cost shared by the state and city. The city budget alone is $65 billion.
Meanwhile in NYC….
New York’s City Council approved a $66 billion fiscal 2012 budget that restores some funding cuts to schools, libraries and social programs as federal and state aid decline and employee salary and benefit obligations rise…….But…….
The budget uses a $3.6 billion surplus from the current year, $700 million from a Retiree Health Benefit Trust and $1 billion in trims to citywide outlays to spend 4.6 percent more than last year’s $63.1 billion. (Emphasis mine)
I’m not an expert on the New York City budget, but it seems to me that the cost of the stop and frisk policy and arrests for pot are too high. And can we leave those pensions alone?
Fortunately, two State lawmakers are proposing to make possession of pot merely a violation.
"New York remains in a fiscal crisis, and we simply cannot afford to arrest tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens for possessing small amounts of marijuana - especially when so many of these arrests are the result of illegal searches or false charges," Sen. Mark Grisanti said in a statement Wednesday. The Republican, who's a criminal defense lawyer, is sponsoring the proposal with Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.
If you live in NYC, please give these two lawmakers some love. I say legalize it, but this new policy would be better.
Contact Information:
Assemblymember Hakeem JeffriesDistrict Office
55 Hanson Place
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718-596-0100Albany Office
LOB 502
Albany, NY 12248
518-455-5325
Sen. Mark Grisanti
Albany Office
Room 902 Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
United States
Phone: 518-455-3240
Fax: 518-426-6738Buffalo Office
65 Court Street Room 213
Buffalo, NY 14202
United States
Phone: 716-854-8705
Fax: 716-854-3051