NCJ Number
209013
Date Published
February 2002
Length
40 pages
Annotation
In order to determine the change in case and defendant characteristics, criminal court processing, and case outcomes in nonfelony arrests prosecuted in New York City's criminal courts under changing police resources and policies, this study examined relevant datasets before and after the changes; this report summarizes major study findings.
Abstract
The study compared data from two points in time almost a decade apart, 1989 and the third quarter of 1998. In 1989, the focus of policing was on the disruption of street-level drug markets and associated violent and weapons crimes. These efforts resulted in felony arrests. In contrast, in 1998 New York City had a criminal justice policy characterized by strategic enforcement of quality-of-life offenses, which frequently involved arrests on misdemeanor charges. The study found more than twice as many arrests for nonfelony offenses in 1998 compared with 1989; and there were changes in the charge-severity distribution of prosecuted summary-arrests for nonfelony offenses. Changes in enforcement strategies and the resulting arrest patterns led to differences in defendant characteristics in the areas of criminal record, age, ethnicity, and sex. Court appearances at which cases were completed and the types of dispositions also differed in the two time periods; and there were differences in the patterns of change between arrest and conviction charge severities in cases where defendants were convicted. Additionally, the study found that there were differences in the two time periods in the use of jail sentences for cases in which defendants were convicted. 20 tables, 1 figure, and 33 notes