Photo by ericrichardson, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

By Paul Bisceglio

Bill Bratton served as New York City’s Police Commissioner from 1994 to 1996, when he was forced because of disagreements with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani over credit for the city’s decrease in crime. Now, he is interested in returning to the position.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Bratton has met with mayoral hopefuls Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and media executive Tom Allon to talk about the job.

“I’ll be quite frank, if that position were to be offered, I’d have to seriously consider it,” Bratton told WSJ. “I fully intend, at some point in time, to return to the public sector.”

The city’s current Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly, is expected to step down when Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaves office in December 2013, though Kelly has not announced officially whether he would consider serving under Bloomberg’s successor.

Bratton has been Police Commissioner in Boston and Los Angeles in addition to New York, and was even considered for the position as head of Scotland Yard. He currently works as chairman of Kroll, an international intelligence and information management company.

“Bill Bratton is recognized as one of the finest and most respected people in law enforcement in the country and around the world,” Thompson’s campaign said in a statement. “He did an exemplary job as police commissioner of New York City and Los Angeles and his innovative strategies produced a significant reduction in crime.”

Some mayoral candidates have told WSJ that they are speaking with numerous law-enforcement professionals about the position, including John Timoney, who has served as Commissioner of Philadelphia’s and Miami’s police forces, and Garry McCarthy, Chicago’s Police Commissioner.

Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told WSJ that Bratton is greatly admired, but there is a “strong case” to bring in an outsider with a “fresh set of eyes.”

“No knock on Kelly, no knock on Bratton,” he said, “but there’s more than a couple of people who can run the police department and run it well.”

There’s been a bit of a new twist in Friday’s murder case regarding two women found dead in a burning ground-floor apartment in Chinatown.

The NYPD is fighting in force - photo courtesy of Wiki Commons

The women, Xia L. Li, 70, and Yong Hua Chen, 36, have been all over New York news stations all weekend, both shot to death and left to burn, but now police believe they are making progress in the case’s investigation. The building the two women were found in, 83 Henry Street, a rundown apartment under the Manhattan Bridge, is possibly connected with prostitution, reports the New York Post. It is just one angle detectives think could be cause for the murders,  but according to the Post, the site is a “known prostitution location”.

Unfortunately, according to the New York Times, the building’s superintendent, Valentin Dominguez, said he doesn’t know who owned the apartment.

The case is in the midst of the NYPD’s large efforts to eradicate both prostitution and sex trafficking, and brings to question, as a whole, the problem of prostitution in New York. The NYPD seems to be making giant leaps in its fight against these issues, but what does this specific case represent? For us who do not partake, just how prevalent is prostitution in NY? What is the NYPD doing to eliminate it? After some research, it seems that the problem is on the decline.

The police are doing a lot. Despite an impressive 3,229 prostitution-related arrests last year, a number reported by WNYC (in a short, informative piece by Cindy Rodriguez), the police continue to make new teams and plans to continue to reduce the activity. So far in 2012, the NYPD is kicking butt.

On June 19, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced the NYPD’s 101st operation under the “Losing Proposition” effort, a new movement, according to Kelly’s release, “in which potential customers (are) arrested after soliciting undercover officers.”

According to a June 19 release by the NYPD, in just the past six months police arrested 598 potential prostitution customers, a huge count compared to past numbers. Police made just 98 arrests under the operation in 2011. According to the NYPD’s release, the latest operation, held in the 42nd precinct in the Bronx, resulted in the arrest of six potential customers or “Johns” as the release puts it.

In partnership with the “Losing Proposition” operation, Commissioner Kelly created a Human Trafficking Squad this year. The squad is part of the NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau.

Regarding efforts in Chinatown, police raided a neighborhood building on May 21 and currently seek forfeiture after connecting the building with illegal gambling and sex trafficking, the NY Post said.

–Nick Gallinelli

Photo by saebaryo. Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons.

Cuomo seeks to loosen marijuana policies, while some lawmakers call proposal too lenient

By Paul Bisceglio

Get caught with a joint hidden in your pocket in New York and you get a fine. Get caught with a joint tucked behind your ear or lit in your hand and you get arrested. Concealed possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana is a violation, while possession of the same amount in public view is a misdemeanor. Simple distinction, right?

Nope. Consider this: A cop stops you on the street and tells you to empty your pockets, and along with your wallet and keys, out into the open comes the small bag of pot you wanted to smoke at home. Because you followed the cop’s orders, and only because you followed the cop’s orders, you are now subject to a much more severe punishment than when you were whistling down the sidewalk with Mary Jane ensconced by your side.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo started a charge last week to erase this “loophole” in law enforcement, as many officials have called it, by proposing a change in state law that would reduce the penalty of visibly possessing 25 grams or less of marijuana in public to a violation with a fine of up to $100 for first-time violators.

Cuomo maintained that smoking in public should remain an arrestable misdemeanor, but argued that a reduced penalty for visible weed that’s not burning would combat the discriminatory police stop-and-frisk tactics that contributed to the arrest of over 50,000 New Yorkers for possession of small amounts of marijuana last year.

“This is an issue that disproportionately affects young people—they wind up with a permanent stain on their record for something that would otherwise be a violation,” he said when he announced the proposal. “The charge makes it more difficult for them to find a job. Together, we are making New York fairer and safer and ensuring that every New Yorker has access to a justice system that doesn’t discriminate based on age or color.”

The numbers are telling. Cuomo pointed out that 50 percent of those arrested last year were under 25, and less than 10 percent were ever convicted of a crime. 82 percent were either black or Hispanic. When compared to federal government data on drug use showing that whites use marijuana at higher rates than blacks or Hispanics, the likelihood of police discrimination becomes clear.

Supporters see Cuomo’s proposal as a necessary continuation of the decriminalization of concealed marijuana in 1977 that will not only protect unlawfully targeted youths from arrests that harm their education, job and housing prospects, but also free up significant police resources to concentrate on graver crimes.

“The over 50,000 arrests for low-level marijuana possession last year—one out of every seven arrests in New York City—cost the city and state of New York nearly $75 million in police and court costs,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, speaking in support of Cuomo’s announcement.

“The simple and fair change proposed by Governor Cuomo will help us redirect significant resources to the most violent criminals and serious crime problems and, frankly, is the right thing to do,” said District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance.
Other officials who endorsed Cuomo’s proposal include City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and State Sen. Daniel Squadron. A major coalition of advocacy groups, including Color of Change, Drug Policy Alliance, VOCAL-NY and the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives launched an online video campaign following the governor’s announcement in support of the change.

Opposed to the proposal is the State Senate’s Republican majority, headed by Dean Skelos, who argued that the change would be excessively lenient. “Being able to just walk around with 10 joints in each ear and only getting a violation, I think that’s wrong,” he told reporters. He said the proposal would not pass his chamber in its current form.

On the police’s manipulation of stop-and-frisk tactics to garner arrests, however, Skelos said, “That is wrong. It should be a violation. You’re following the policeman’s order.”