City Council fails to properly address gangs; new bill could target Black and Latino teens
By STEPHON JOHNSON Amsterdam News Staff
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 7:08 PM EST
On February 11, the New York City Council voted 38 to 9 in approval of a bill, Intro 1-2010, that would crack down on gang initiation activity and prevent gangs from recruiting new members.
This new legislation creates a Class A misdemeanor penalty for what it dubs “criminal street gang initiation.” Those who are charged would face as much as a year in jail if convicted of initiating a person and if the initiation created a risk of “physical injury.” So what’s the problem with this bill? The New York Police Department and prosecution don’t have to prove with witness testimony that the injury took place during initiation.
Vagueness permeates this bill and it leaves a lot of questions open to a plethora of answers. One question, however, has been asked multiple times since news of the bill’s passing broke: Will this bill unfairly target Black and Latino teenagers in New York City? Two people answered with a resounding “yes” to that question.
Charisa Smith, coordinator of the New York Task Force on Racial Disparities and the Juvenile Justice System, spoke of the myriad of ways in which this bill can be a problem. “I think it’ll really allow for an undesignated level of restriction without any guidelines,” Smith said. “They can make an assumption as to what a group is going to do. The policies are, if you see this kind of behavior, you must do this. [It] leaves you with a broad range of possibility.
“It’s going to widen the potential load of alleged suspects,” Smith continued. “It’s gonna really confuse young people, because how do you avoid it?”
Smith isn’t the only one who sees holes in this legislation. Marquez Claxton, a former NYPD officer and City Council candidate, thinks the bill could be a good thing with clear regulations and directions, but sees parallels with another NYPD practice.
“The expressed sentiment behind it is a good thing,” Claxton acknowledged. “But the concern would be the application of the law by the police department. The real problem comes with how they enforce it. Will it be equally enforced or will it be targeted enforcement? If this is done the same way as stop and frisk, we have to look at the legislation with a skewed eye.”
Last year, police officers stopped a record 575,000 people under the stop and frisk policy, in which officers stop, detain and/or pat down people in the streets. Almost 90 percent of those who were stopped under the policy were Black or Latino. The NYPD claims that the practice has stopped and prevented crimes, but many groups, including the ACLU, say it unfairly targets ethnic minorities and violates basic civil liberties.
Many fear the same when it comes to bill Intro 1-2010. “First of all, teenagers gather in large groups to begin with,” said Smith. “When people are gathered in a group, it’s unclear as to what’s going on. Young people in Black and Latino neighborhoods are going to be forced to live in fear of the police more than they do already. There’s not enough safe havens for Black and Latino teenagers to go. It’s kind of an accident waiting to happen.”
Council Member Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn echoed similar sentiments after the council announced the vote. “I don’t think it’s going to deter one gang violation,” he said.
“The collateral damage isn’t worth it.”
The “collateral damage” that Williams mentioned would more than likely be the result of a law open to police interpretation. Not only could it have bad consequences for innocent teens, but the teens that are actually out gangbanging could get away with crimes if they hire the right representation in court.
“A good law is not this vague and open-ended because a good law doesn’t want enforcers to interpret it so widely,” Claxton said. “It’s too open-ended and it’s not specific enough, and it makes it that much more difficult to be enforced. You stand a risk of having individuals who should be prosecuted beating these cases because the law is poorly written.”
So the law could be a disaster two-fold. It could unfairly target Black and Latino teens and it could be a blessing to those who are actually in gangs. City legislation must go back to the drawing board.
Attempts to contact the NYPD were unsuccessful.
http://www.amsterdamnews.com/articles/2010/02/24/news/doc4b85a05dc251b113444973.prt
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