The New York Police Department will no longer arrest people for low-level marijuana possession, issuing violation summonses instead, sources confirm. Of the nearly 16,000 such arrests this year, 86% were blacks or Latinos.
Jeny Chang for BuzzFeed
NEW YORK CITY — The New York Police Department will no longer arrest people for low-level marijuana possession, according to people with knowledge of the city's drug strategy who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The NYPD will instead issue violation summonses to people caught with marijuana – instead of putting them in handcuffs and taking them to a precinct. The summonses will require people to appear in court at a later date and pay a fine.
Few details on the new policy were immediately available, but an official with one of the city's five district attorneys offices confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Monday that the change "is happening." The NYPD and Mayor Bill de Blasio's office did not immiediately respond to requests for comment.
The new policy, which was first reported by the New York Times , would bring about a sea-change in the way the city is policed. Misdemeanor-level marijuana possession accounts for a large percentage of the city's arrests, a vast majority of which happen to young black or Latino men living in poor neighborhoods.
Possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana has not been a crime in New York State since 1977. The NYPD made 59,000 arrests for misdemeanor possession in 2010.
Under current law, the only way to get arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for having less than 25 grams of marijuana is to display it "in public view." The legal definition of that term, however, is ambiguous. "Public view" can mean smoking a pot in a public place, but it can also mean that a police officer stopped you, frisked you, and pulled a small bag of marijuana from your pocket.
When the bag leaves your pocket, it has technically entered public view, and the officer can legally arrest you and charge you with a misdemeanor — even though you had less than the decriminalized amount. This helped low-level marijuana possession become one of the NYPD's most commonly used arrest charges during stop-and-frisks.
The correlation between marijuana arrests and stop-and-frisk became apparent after 2011, when a U.S. District Court declared the policing tactic an unconstitutional form of racial profiling. By 2013, the NYPD was making only 28,000 marijuana possession arrests — still a large number, but 47% less than in 2010.
A recent study by the non-profit Drug Policy Alliance found that upwards of 86% of all low-level marijuana arrests made in 2014 affected blacks or Latinos — even though national studies have shown that white people are just as likely to smoke marijuana regularly, and slightly more likely to have tried it.
The report also found that the geography of the arrests is highly segregated, with white neighborhoods seeing fewer arrests than neighborhoods of color with similar per-capita incomes.
These stark race and class disparities in drug law enforcement became a sore point for Mayor de Blasio, who as a candidate promised to end discriminatory policing. Despite those promises, William Bratton, de Blasio's police commissioner, defended the policy to go after low-level marijuana offenses — even after Ken Thompson, Brooklyn's new District attorney, said that he would refuse to prosecute them.
More details on the new policy are expected soon. De Blasio and Bratton are scheduled to make an announcement together Monday at 3 p.m.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.
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