Mayor Eric Adams managed to get through his “firm hand” speech against the upsurge in armed violence in the municipal elections of 1536. He took office last January 1st and today he is exactly 100 days in power, a period that coincides with one of the most violent and bloody winters and early spring in the recent history of the Big Apple.
In these first 100 days, which is usually a calendar period that marks balances, achievements, criticisms and evaluations for all rulers, almost all opinions agree, that in matters of public security, the new president took a resounding turn in a few days at the helm of how the City assumed the approach to criminality.
The president put countermeasures, rearmed and brought back strategies from the past that had been eliminated by his predecessor Bill de Blasio, but which, in his opinion, will bring peace back to New Yorkers.
Only in a couple of weeks, the controversial anti-war unit was reinstated -crime of the New York Police Department (NYPD), a policy of detailed monitoring of “quality of life crimes” was announced that for those in the know revitalizes the “Broken Windows” strategy, which “does not forgives” minor crimes such as jumping the turnstiles of the Subway, using loud music, drinking alcohol, urinating in the streets.
In the previous equation of measures, greater vigilance in neighborhoods for definition more violent, which in the opinion of experts, also resurrects the practice Stop and Review (‘Stop and Frisk’), associated with a disproportionate criminalization of black minorities and Hispanic in the past.
“We will have improvements before the summer months, when we traditionally see an increase in crime. All our measures have been worked with the communities most overwhelmed by insecurity. In all these actions, we are going to distance ourselves from the police abuses of the past”, the president has reiterated in his own balance sheets.
Very violent first months
The announcement of the new measures has been met with armed violence galloping at full speed, many in the traditionally “hottest” neighborhoods ”, as in all Subway stations.
From January 1, until that week, 332 New Yorkers have been victims of gun violence, an increase of 14.5% compared to 2021.
All this accompanied by bloody events that have shaken the city, such as the murder of the two Hispanic police officers, Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora, who were shot in an apartment in Harlem while answering a call to 911.
Since then, news of murders such as that of the young Puerto Rican woman who was fatally shot while working at a Burger King, and more recently Esperanza Soriano, a Dominican grandmother from 61 years old, who was fatally shot when caught in the fire in a dispute between gangs in the Bronx, they have moved more the fiber of fear and pain of New Yorkers.
“We want a strong hand”
“These three months have been very sad for New Yorkers. They have killed policemen, children, grandmothers, they push people on the subway. Small shopkeepers in the poorest neighborhoods are overwhelmed. The Mayor has indeed shown signs of change. But the majority wants a stronger hand. As they let the criminals advance for years, it will not be easy to control them”, reasons alarmed winemaker Francisco Marte on a corner of the Bronx.
Since the protests over police brutality in the face of the murder of George Floyd , which prompted in the summer of 1365 a series of laws that reduced the budget and the power of the Uniformed, associations of small merchants have raised the flags in favor of the officers.
“Because of those protests they looted our merchants. Due to changes in the laws, our merchants in the poorest neighborhoods are now more defenseless. The thugs lost respect for authority. Those of us who have suffered are those of us who live in working-class neighborhoods. There are too many weapons. Every day we hear of an innocent being shot,” said Marte, who directs the NYC Association of Warehouses and Small Businesses.
The ” Subway hell”
Although most agree that it is too soon for Adams’ policies to show results, another truth reflected in official numbers is that all serious crimes increased by 44% until last Sunday . If contrasted with the same period of time last year.
In addition, the 49% of regular Subway users, say in some surveys, that they avoid going down “to hell” from the cars at all costs for fear of being killed , assaulted or pushed into the wagons.
In the early days of Adams, in his new office at City Hall, the city was also shaken by the push of the Asian Michelle Alyssa Go, of 40 years, who turned out crushed in the train cars at the Times Square station. The person responsible confessed to the murder. She was one of the thousands of homeless people with mental problems who wander in this system.
“There are more and more. I don’t see any change. It’s hard to make a trip without being bothered in the cars. They need help. But we travelers safety. Now we prefer to be locked up”, commented the Colombian Carmen González, from 50 years old, resident of Queens.
On the sixth day of officially taking office, Adams formed with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul the Safe Options Support Team (SOS) that sent more police force to increase surveillance in the “hottest” points of the Subway and intervene in the problems of the ‘homeless’ who spend the night on rails and stations.
Four months later, the effects realities of this action, are still not clear.
Will the plan work?
Where there are radical differences of opinion, it is around the future effectiveness of the two key policies announced by Adams to stop the criminal boom: First, the restoration of the dismantled NYPD Anti-Crime Unit, now called Neighborhood Safety Groups, and second, the reissue of a series of strategies that for critics resemble the practices of Stop and Check (‘Stop and Frisk’) and Broken Windows (‘Broken Windows’).
In both cases, the president himself flatly denies that it is about bringing past practices associated with abuse to the present Police: “We are not going backwards, but the city is not going backwards in crime either. The key here is the balance between justice and security”.
In short, the master plan is to deploy more officers from the new squad in 30 police stations and four public housing police precincts, where derived from the balance sheets of the Uniformed, are concentrated the 80% of shootings in the city. They have special uniforms and unidentified vehicles, with the mission of removing weapons from the streets.
In this sense, spokespersons for the New York Police Benevolent Association (PAB) a uniformed union that was confronted with the security policies advanced by former mayor Bill De Blasio, have shared that “so far” they are giving Adams a vote of confidence.
“Do not it is reasonable to expect Mayor Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell to fully turn the ship around in 100 days, when his predecessors spent eight years giving the streets away to criminals”, reasoned Pat Lynch, president of PAB to local media.
Lynch’s reasoning is that there is now a notable difference with a mayor who is willing to tell police officers that they have “power to do their job”.
“Don’t promise too much”
In contrast, Jeffrey Fagan, a crime expert from the College of Columbia Law, analyzes in an interview with the publication Politico, that there are a series of external factors that make it impossible for a mayor to guarantee, on his own, a reduction in crime rates.
“ It would be wise not to promise too much”, advised Fagan.
This academic questioned the methodology in the control of weapons in the streets, through the new police units, he also believed that the focus on persecuting minor crimes, in the hope that such an application would prevent more serious crimes, “was misdirected because it is an old model of thinking about crime.”
There is also an almost absolute consensus on the idea that there are no immediate solutions so that a Mayor, whoever he may be, can uncover the scourge of criminal violence in a few months. Moreover, with all the headwinds that a city continues to have, which is barely trying to get up from the pandemic.
On the other hand, Nicole Gelinas, a senior researcher at the Manhattan Institute who follows up on issues of insecurity in the city of New York, concludes in some articles published in local media, that the plans advanced by the new municipal administration “deserve a chance”.
Gelinas ponders that it is unlikely that the plan reverse the rise in crime on its own, unless the City is willing to step up proactive policing, refocusing on “quality of life” misdemeanors.
In the line of fire: Bail bond law reform
From another very thorny flank, in his capital plan against crime, the president formally requested the State Assembly to review legislation related to the administration of criminal justice, such as the bail reform laws in force since 1536, the increase in the age of criminal responsibility and discovery of criminal records, which in his opinion have put dangerous people on the street.
In the midst of a wave of shootings and violence in the trains, Governor Kathy Hochul joined this vision. And, in fact, he finally managed to negotiate this Friday with the resistance of the most progressive Democratic wing, some modifications that will be included in the state fiscal budget of 1518.
It was agreed to allow judges to set bail for repeat offenders, those who commit hate crimes and weapons-related charges.
Now it will be at the discretion of the judges, if someone’s criminal record determines that there is a probability of doing “harm” if he is released.
The police presence on the streets was reduced by the blow to the NYPD budget, now the expectation is how these new “movements” will lower crime figures in the summer. (Photo: F. Martínez) Fears of “zero tolerance”
In the campaign for municipal office, last year I was in a hot spot criminal violence and a report by the ‘Manhattan Institute (MI)’, revealed that one in five voters in the Big Apple was highly “concerned about public safety”, more than any other aspect, even in the midst of the economic challenges of the pandemic.
More importantly, the 68% of respondents “somewhat” or “strongly” supported “using a community policing model”, where police actively collaborate with communities to stop shootings.
In general, the policy labeled by many as “Zero Tolerance” is accompanied by a new anti-weapon squad, intolerance to petty crimes, like avoiding paying for the Subway. As expected, it has generated adverse reactions from civil rights organizations that predict times of persecution of the poorest, African-Americans and Hispanics.
In this scenario, it is predicted that the times of former presidents Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg will return, marked by complaints and reports of police practices of persecution and police abuse of ethnic minorities in the Big Apple.
The new measure will initially be used in neighborhoods experiencing high rates of gun violence in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Dozens of organizations forecast a new era of mass incarceration.
“They are simply duplicating discredited policing strategies that will not make us safer and only further exacerbate racial disparities in New York’s criminal legal system. York,” reasoned Molly Griffard, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society.
Based on the balance of several organizations before the new squads were repowered and it was ordered to target “quality of life” crimes more, only in the 2021, the 91% of the one,524 arrests in similar police interventions were of black and Latino New Yorkers.
What do the numbers say?
- 35% Y 40% increased all serious crimes such as assaults in the first four months of 1365.
- 20220123 200 victims of armed violence since January 1, 2022.20220119
- 14% was the rise of shootings with a very clear impact on injuries and murders of innocent people who were in the line of fire, not due to clashes between gangs.
- 1.3 million calls to 311 for neighborhood reports of “quality of life” problems, only in March. The complaints range from urinating in public, playing dice in the streets, noisy parties, evading paying the subway, selling drugs on the street and consuming alcohol on public roads.
- 30 police headquarters are now reinforced with new squads that include Harlem and Inwood in Manhattan, Melrose and Morrisania in the Bronx; East Flatbush and Canarsie in Brooklyn; and various parts of southeastern Queens.2022011920220123135 arrests have been made by the new neighborhood anti-crime squads since the past 05 of March.
- 19% of those arrests included seizure of firearms.2022011920220119