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2018-04-26
NYCLU;
The Student Safety Act (SSA) requires that the New York City Police Department publically issue quarterly reports on arrests, summonses, and other police-involved incidents in New York City public schools.i The 2017 calendar year is the second year in which the NYPD reported on activity in schools by officers outside of the School Safety Division, giving a more complete picture of the impact police have on the educational environment. iiSince 2012, the number of arrests and summonses issued by School Safety Officers (SSOs) has consistently declined. In 2017, SS0s were responsible for less than 15% of arrests and 2% of summonses. However, the vast majority of police interactions with students in school are not with the school safety officers specially trained to work with youth in schools, but with other law enforcement officials, including armed patrol officers. In addition, 366 arrests (29% of total arrests in schools) were for incidents that occured off school grounds and had no relationship to the school, indicating that police may be using schools as a place to locate and arrest young people for non-school related offenses. This practice sends the harmful message that kids in trouble should stay away from school.The School Safety Division has made a significant effort to reduce the use of summonses for non-criminal offenses. In 2017 they issued just 18 summonses, down from 1,275 in 2012. Summonses for disorderly conduct, including unreasonable noise, fighting and obscene language, are not an appropriate response to student misbehavior. However, precinct officers are not required to follow the same procedures as the School Safety Division, and officers issued nearly 900 summonses, sending children into the criminal justice system for misbehavior.Black and Latino students continue to bear the burden of arrests, summonses, and police interactions in school, and the city has failed its responsibility to reduce the racial disparities in its school safety program. Black and Latino students represent 66.9 % of the student body, but 90.2% of arrests and 89.3% of summonses in school. They also accounted for 88.4% of child-in-crisis incidents, 87.9% of juvenile reports, and 89.5% of mitigated incidents. Students of color were also more likely than white students to be handcuffed for school misbehavior, even where there is no criminal activity. Black and Latino students accounted for 92.5% of juvenile reports and 94.4% of mitigated incidents where handcuffs were used, as well as 93.4% of child-in-crisis incidents where handcuffs were used.
2018-03-13
Coalition for the Homeless;
New York City reached a grim new milestone at the close of 2017: Last December, an average of 63,495 men, women, and children slept in City homeless shelters each night – an all-time record. To put this in context, only nine cities in the entire state of New York have populations larger than New York City's sheltered homeless population. Three-quarters of New Yorkers sleeping in shelters are members of homeless families, including 23,600 children. An 82 percent increase in homelessness over the past decade speaks to the severe shortage of affordable housing – fed by the combination of rising rents and stagnating incomes – along with devastating policy decisions that have limited access to affordable and supportive housing for homeless and extremely low-income New Yorkers. State of the Homeless 2018 articulates the steps necessary for the City and State to make a meaningful and lasting impact on this tragedy of historic proportions.
2018-01-30
Urban Politics and Governance Research Group at McGill University (UPGO);
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Airbnb activity in New York City and the surrounding region in the last three years (September 2014 - August 2017). Relying on new methodologies to analyze big data, we set out to answer four questions:
1. Where is Airbnb activity located in New York, and how is it changing?
2. Who makes money from Airbnb in New York?
3. How much housing has Airbnb removed from the market in New York?
4. Is Airbnb driving gentrification in New York?
2018-01-01
New York Community Trust;
The purpose of this study was to assess the state of agencies created by, for, and about ALAANA culture and communities in New York City. These organizations had to have established operating budgets of $200,000 or more. This budgetary threshold was established as a marker of organizations that were more likely to have existing data available in external databases, be eligible for funding consideration by institutional grantmakers, and have the capacity to fill out the survey or participate in the in-person conversations.
2017-07-20
NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board;
The Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) is an independent agency of the City of New York. The Board investigates, mediates, and prosecutes complaints of misconduct that members of the public file against police officers of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The CCRB was established in its all-civilian form, independent from the Police Department, in 1993. The Board consists of 13 members. The City Council designates five Board members (one from each borough); the Police Commissioner designates three; and the Mayor designates five, including the Chair. All appointments are made by the Mayor, who also has the authority to select the Chair of the Board. Under the New York City Charter, the Board must reflect the diversity of the City's residents and all members must live in New York City. No member of the Board may have a law enforcement background, except those designated by the Police Commissioner, who must have had a law enforcement vocation. No Board member may be a public employee or serve in public office. Board members serve three-year terms, which can be and often are renewed. They receive compensation on a per-session basis, although some Board members may choose to serve pro bono. Board members review and make findings on all misconduct complaints once they have been investigated by an all-civilian staff. From 1993 to 2013, when the Board found that an officer committed misconduct, the case was referred to the Police Commissioner with a discipline recommendation. Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the CCRB and the NYPD (effective April 11, 2013), all substantiated cases in which the Board recommends that charges and specifications be brought against an officer are prosecuted by a team of CCRB attorneys in the Agency's Administrative Prosecution Unit. Substantiated cases in which the Board recommends some discipline other than charges and specifications (e.g. instructions) are still referred to the Police Commissioner in the same manner as prior to 2013.
2017-07-01
Center for Constitutional Rights;
In August 2013, a federal judge found that the New York Police Department (NYPD) had engaged in a widespread practice of unconstitutional and racially discriminatory stops and frisks and ordered a collaborative, joint remedial process (JRP) to develop a set of reforms that will help bring the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices into compliance with the Constitution. The judge highlighted the importance of getting this input, writing at the time, "No amount of legal or policing expertise can replace a community's understanding of the likely practical consequences of reforms in terms of both liberty and safety." The JRP ensures that communities who have been directly affected by these practices will have direct input into shaping the future of stop and frisk in New York. The JRP was envisioned to solicit ideas for additional reforms from communities most impacted by stops and frisks. In addition to community stakeholders, the process will involve the City, members of law enforcement, local elected officials, organizations with expertise in policing and criminal justice attorneys representing the plaintiffs. This process echoes a similar process successfully implemented in Cincinnati, Ohio over a decade ago to address systemic abusive and biased policing practices. Guiding this process is the court-appointed Facilitator, Hon. Ariel Belen.
2017-07-01
Surdna Foundation;
This report summarizes the main findings of the recent research, revisiting the reasons why addressing diversity and equity issues in the cultural sector matters more than ever and reviewing six key findings related to national and local patterns of funding distribution, the demographics of people making funding decisions, and the distinct issues facing cultural organizations whose primary artistic mission is to serve communities of color or low-income communities. It concludes with suggestions for how to speed progress toward a more inclusive and equitable system of cultural philanthropy.
2017-05-08
NYCLU;
The Student Safety Act (SSA) requires that the New York City Police Department publically issue quarterly reports on arrests, summonses, and other police-involved incidents in New York City public schools. The 2016 calendar year marked the first time that the NYPD reported on activity by officers outside of the School Safety Division, giving a more complete picture of the enormous impact police have on the educational environment. Since 2012, the number of arrests and summonses issued by School Safety Officers (SSOs) has consistently declined. However, in 2016, SS0s were responsible for less than 12% of arrests and 2% of summonses. Thus, this decline in reported incidents is only a fraction of the picture. 2016 is the first year for which school-based incidents involving not only SSOs, but all NYPD personnel, were reported.
2017-03-09
Social Impact of the Arts Project at University of Pennsylvania;
This report presents the conceptual framework, data and methodology, and findings of a two-year study of culture and social wellbeing in New York City by SIAP with Reinvestment Fund. Building on their work in Philadelphia, the team gathered data from City agencies, borough arts councils, and cultural practitioners to develop a 10-dimension social wellbeing framework—which included construction of a cultural asset index—for every neighborhood in the five boroughs. The research was undertaken between 2014 and 2016.
The social wellbeing tool enables a variety of analyses: the distribution of opportunity across the city;identification of areas with concentrated advantage, concentrated disadvantage, aswell as "diverse and struggling" neighborhoods with both strengths and challenges; and analysis of the relationship of"neighborhood cultural ecology" to other features of a healthy community.
2017-03-01
ICPH;
In New York City, one out of every eight public school students has been homeless at some point in the past five years. One in four (26%) of these students is in high school. In More Than a Place to Sleep: Understanding the Health and Well-Being of Homeless High School Students, we begin to explore differences in risk behaviors and health outcomes between homeless high school students and their housed classmates. Homeless high school students are struggling to not only find a place to sleep, but to meet their mental, emotional, and physical health needs as they pursue educational goals necessary to break the cycle of poverty and homelessness.
Homeless students face disproportionate burdens across the board—they are more likely to fall behind academically due to school transfers, absenteeism, and other instability factors; they are more likely to be suspended; they are less likely to receive timely identification for special education services; and the list goes on. What this report reveals is that these students face yet another set of obstacles to educational achievement— their health and risk behaviors—that, if unaddressed, will make it harder for them to finish school, follow professional goals, and remain stably housed in their own adult lives.
As New York City works to improve outcomes for homeless students, those efforts must incorporate an understanding of risk behaviors and health outcomes, which have been shown to predict well-being and productivity later in life. This report uses data from the Centers for Disease Control's 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which for the first time includes survey questions allowing us to distinguish homeless from housed students.
One promising approach is ensuring the access of homeless teens to school-based health centers. While homeless students have limited access to these centers, they are more likely than their housed peers to use health services when they are available. Moreover, many shelters could be re-envisioned as Community Residential Resource Centers (CRRCs) where educational resources and support services could be made available to not only homeless students, but all students in the community.
Meeting the needs of homeless high school students is paramount, as risk behaviors and health outcomes impact their futures. These students have unequivocally worse health outcomes than housed teens. They also make up a disproportionately large segment of students facing the most extreme health risks. At only 12% of the YRBS sample, homeless high school students represent a third or more of all students facing a range of health risks. Without targeted policy and program interventions, the future of these homeless teens is not promising. Just read the accompanying quotes throughout this publication—in their own voices, students share some of their struggles, hopes, and disappointments as they navigate high school while homeless.
2017-02-15
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest;
NYLPI's Health Justice Program released a report documenting the serious, often life-threatening, deficiencies in the medical care provided to people detained in New York City-area immigration detention facilities. The facilities, County jails that contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), regularly failed to provide adequate medical care to those who were detained, violating their constitutional rights. People confined to immigration detention have the right to adequate health care. Our work has shown that ICE and the County jails are delaying and denying necessary and essential care – leading to devastating health consequences such as emergency surgery, delayed cancer diagnoses and worsening conditions of treatable diseases and pain. We hope this report shines a light on this population, a population of people we can only presume will increase as ICE raids happen across the country and President Trump promises more deportations.
2017-02-01
Vera Institute of Justice;
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is conducting an internal review of its policies related to permanent exclusions for criminal conduct on NYCHA property.
Permanent exclusion (PE) occurs when a NYCHA tenant—rather than risk eviction—enters into a stipulation that those associated with the resident who have engaged in non-desirable behavior are barred from entering the apartment. It also occurs as a result of an administrative hearing where NYCHA seeks an eviction, but the hearing officer opts to preserve the tenancy and bars the offending person from the apartment.
To inform this policy review, NYCHA partnered with the Vera Institute of Justice and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The review sought to understand how NYCHA could better balance its commitments to the safety of the community, the stability of its tenants' families, and the successful reentry of formerly incarcerated people.
The following recommendations reflect an extensive review of existing policies and practices around PE, interviews with NYCHA staff, a meeting with NYCHA residents, and social science research on risk mitigation and future offending.
