Thanks to the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA) passed in 2017, New York City has seen a significant decrease in low level summons across the board. These summons include disorderly conduct, transit authority rules like jumping turnstiles in the subway, and cannabis possession. 

Unfortunately, even though summons have been on the general decline, young people under the age of 24, the black community, and a large portion of the Bronx suburb have increased significantly. On top of that, cannabis possession has surpassed alcohol as the main cause for a summons.

Statistics

Many have said that the unproportionate summons occurrences are because of the unjust and racial War on Drugs. Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College released a report breaking down all summons from 2003 to 2019. It shows how cannabis possession has actually surpassed alcohol consumption and disorderly conduct. 

This report found summons decreased 87 percent from 2003 at 541,862 down to 72,314 in 2019. But also in 2019, the black community was the largest portion of the summons. 45 percent of summons for cannabis possession were part of the black community. Transit authority that includes turnstile jumping summons were 42 percent from the black community. Disorderly conduct had 42 percent of summons from the black community. Finally, publicly consuming alcohol received 41 percent of summons from the black community.

Response

“The statistics from the Data Collaborative for Justice show that it’s possible to keep thousands out of the criminal legal system while still maintaining safe communities,” said President Karol V. Mason of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “But more needs to be done to address the disparities shown in the report. Far too many young, Black and brown people are still being unnecessarily caught up in the criminal justice system.” 

Council Speaker Corey Johnson continued, saying, “since the Council passed the Criminal Justice Reform Act in May of 2016, the reduction in criminal summonses enforcement for minor, non-violent offenses is just and fair, and has spared thousands of New Yorkers of having unnecessary criminal records that can hurt them throughout their lives. Because of the Council’s legislation, many low-level, non-violent offenses are settled with civil fines, not in criminal court. Although criminal summonses dropped drastically, racial disparities continue, and we have to keep working to eliminate these disparities.”

Future

Though things are better overall, things are still disproportionately against the black community in New York City. Things are looking better, but they still have a long way to go. At the end of 2019, almost 700,000 open summons associated with low level crimes remained. Change still needs to happen. But it appears that officials are aware of the situation and are actively working to rectify it. All that remains is time.

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