“Misdemeanor Enforcement Trends in New York City, 2016–2022”
The title of this post is the title of this notable and lengthy new research report released today by the Brennan Center. The report’s homepage includes links to data and fact sheets and all sort of other interesting materials. And the report’s introduction highlights the importance of greater data gathering in this space, and here are a few paragraphs therefrom (with footnotes omitted):
When people think of the American criminal justice system, they think of prisons, lengthy sentences, and parole hearings. They also think of serious offenses such as murder, aggravated assault, and rape. But the majority of cases are less serious offenses, as defined in statute, including drug possession, shoplifting, gambling, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, vandalism, speeding, simple assault, and driving with a suspended license. For many Americans, minor offenses — that is, misdemeanors, violations, and infractions — are the primary entry point into the criminal justice system. Entanglement in this part of the system is anything but minor….
Despite its broad reach, the minor offense system is difficult to quantify. Government officials often do not collect data on infractions, civil violations, and other offenses they consider too trivial to count. The data that is collected — typically data on misdemeanors — is likely an undercount. Even so, in the United States, misdemeanors amount to roughly three-quarters of all criminal cases filed each year. Every day, tens of thousands of people are ticketed, arrested, or arraigned for a misdemeanor, making it a central feature of the United States’ crisis of overcriminalization and an engine of its overreliance on incarceration.
In recent years, scholars and legal practitioners have brought attention to the need to rein in the sprawling minor offense system. Misdemeanor adjudication has earned a reputation of assembly-line justice that lacks meaningful public defense or due process protections. Some researchers have described it as a means to mark and manage disadvantaged groups deemed potential risks, whereby the “process is punishment.” In addition to the degradation of arrest, the imposed obligations and sanctions — frequent court appearances, the opportunity cost of lost wages, fines and fees, collateral consequences of a criminal record, and even jail detention — are frequently disproportionate to the severity of the crime….
As concern about the minor offense system has grown, efforts to shrink it have proliferated. At the same time, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people in urban areas have perceived or experienced increased physical and social disorder in public spaces — petty theft, open drug use, public intoxication, people suffering mental health crises, homeless encampments, defacement of property, transit fare evasion, and public urination. Petty and nuisance offenses, visible poverty, and public displays of disorderly and unpredictable behavior, coupled with high-profile media coverage of violent crimes and harassment, have renewed calls for stronger enforcement of lower-level offenses.
This report seeks to shed light on minor offense enforcement — what has changed in recent years, what has not, and what can be done to fix it. Building on previous scholarship, it offers an updated national snapshot of the scale of misdemeanor cases filed between 2018 and 2021, highlighting changes over the Covid-19 pandemic.