The Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday heard oral arguments in a challenge to New York’s controversial “gravity knife” statute, the latest chapter in a fight against a law that has drawn broad criticism from criminal justice reform groups, in part for its disproportionate impact on people of color. Two of the plaintiffs in the case, […]
Yang Song fell four stories onto a sidewalk in Flushing, Queens on the night of November 25th. An officer with the New York City Police Department accompanied her, unconscious, to New York Presbyterian Hospital where doctors placed her on a respirator. They worked for hours: the 35 units of blood they transfused did not take, given the severity of her injuries from the thirty foot fall.
A 38-year-old woman, Yang Song of Queens, New York, died at New York Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday, one day after falling three stories from an apartment window in nearby Flushing. Little has been reported about Song beyond the New York Police Department’s assertion that she was a sex worker, and fell while officers from the Queens […]
A new app seeks to liberate people from more than “liberal malaise.”
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was re-elected last week, an unsurprising twist given that his was the only name on the ballot. In fact, given the lack of official options, Vance’s victory was not so impressive. He still managed to garner only 90% of the vote — almost 20,000 people decided to write-in a candidate rather than […]
Dispatches is our series from organizers, attorneys, officials, and others working at the frontlines of local criminal justice reform.
A law that results in disproportionate arrests and prosecutions of black and Latino New Yorkers will stand.
U.S. Attorney says the evidence against him is “overwhelming”
A movement to oust Cyrus Vance gains steam.
In New York City, many demographics are eligible for subsidized MetroCards, which allow them to access the increasingly expensive and dysfunctionalsubway system at a lower cost. Transit benefits are available to the elderly, disabled, and schoolchildren, and many companies offer their employees pre-tax MetroCards as part of their benefits package. But one group of New Yorkers is conspicuously left out […]
Each week, the Fair Punishment Project monitors the news in New York, talks to local journalists and advocates, and share the most important stories with you through our weekly New York newsletter. In this week’s New York newsletter, we brought you stories about ICE raids, the future of Rikers Island, a program that is cutting […]
Each week, the Fair Punishment Project monitors the news in New York, talks to local journalists and advocates, and share the most important stories with you through our weekly New York newsletter. Here’s here our big story from this week, looking at police accountability and the NYPD. Be sure to subscribe to our New York newsletter […]
If you’re facing criminal charges in Manhattan, it appears you might be able to get out of that jam with the right campaign donations. And if you don’t have that kind of cash? Expect to face jail time and fines, even for the lowest-level offenses. This is the transactional possibility suggested by a series of […]
A book excerpt from The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement (NYU Press 2017) In downtown Manhattan, an experimental prosecution unit has begun rethinking how to reduce violent crime. Under the leadership of district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office created the Crime Strategies Unit (CSU) to target the bad apples in […]
At the ballot box in Ontario County, New York this week, Republican voters chose candidate Jim Ritts as the primary candidate for district attorney. Ritts won with 55 percent of the vote, beating Kristina “Kitty” Karle, a former assistant prosecutor in neighboring Monroe county. Karle’s loss comes after an appellate court criticized her for prosecutorial misconduct in […]
Vote in a Brooklyn District Attorney that Represents Your Values for the Future of Criminal Justice.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is urging the state of New York to create a independent commission to look into what he has called a “wrongful convictions crisis” in Brooklyn. Since 2014, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU) has investigated at least 70 convictions; 23 have been overturned. The CRU, which was started by the […]
Pedro Hernandez, an 18-year-old man man from the Bronx, has been locked up on Rikers Island waiting for trial for almost two years. He has no prior criminal convictions and is fighting two cases, a 2015 shooting and an unrelated robbery, both of which appear to rest on flimsy evidence.
For decades people who’ve jumped over the turnstiles in the New York subway system have faced arrest and being charged with criminal “theft of services.” But New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance recently announced that his office would no longer pursue criminal charges against most people for fare evasion, and would instead seek to send them […]
In the context of the justice system, it is now becoming disturbingly common: a conviction vacated and an innocent person freed from prison because of the misdoings of former New York City Detective Louis Scarcella. The latest is 43-year-old Jabbar Washington. Earlier this week his conviction was vacated after prosecutors determined he was denied a fair trial […]