Advocates have noted legalization would address the issue of low -
level marijuana possession arrests, which disproportionately affect communities of color, particularly in New York.
In 2014, Thompson began what the DA's office called a groundbreaking policy not to prosecute low -
level marijuana possession arrests.
Not exact matches
He said the city also established policies like eliminating
arrests for low -
level marijuana possession, saying that
arrests in many cases are a last resort.
There were 17,880
arrests in NYC last year for which the most serious charge was low -
level misdemeanor
marijuana possession, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services.
Last year, 86 percent of those
arrested for low -
level marijuana possession were black and Hispanic.
Even the city's liberal Democrat mayor, who has pushed policing reforms including the decrease in criminal
arrests of low -
level marijuana possession, is opposed the policy shift.
But it does not turn over individuals
arrested for low -
level crimes such as
possession of small amount of
marijuana or blowing a stoplight without damaging people or property, or even for more serious nonviolent violations like money laundering, grand larceny or harassment.
The vast majority of people who are
arrested for
marijuana possession are of color, while usage of whites is largely at comparable
levels, Nixon said.
NYC
arrested 16,925 people last year for low -
level marijuana possession and smoking in public, a decline of only 1 percentage point from the previous year's total of 17,097, even though de Blasio said he would cut down on
arrests.
Gabriel Sayegh, New York state director for the Drug Policy Alliance, said 50,683 people in the city were
arrested for the lowest
level of
marijuana possession in 2011.
According to 2017 statistics compiled by the state, blacks accounted for 48 percent of
arrests in New York City for the lowest
level of
marijuana possession, while Latinos accounted for 38 percent, compared to 9 percent for whites.
He also said that NYPD reduced
marijuana arrests by about 38,000 since four years ago and that the city stopped
arresting people for low -
level possession.
New Yorkers will no longer necessarily be
arrested for low -
level marijuana offenses, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Bill Bratton said today, announcing that in many cases of
possession of the drug, police can write a summons instead.
«Too many New Yorkers without any prior convictions have been
arrested for low -
level marijuana possession.
At the press conference, they called for individuals to receive summonses for low -
level marijuana possession instead of being
arrested.
At a City Council hearing on Monday, Queens Councilman Rory Lancman, chairman of the Committee on Justice Systems, asked the city's five district attorneys to decline to prosecute individuals who are
arrested for low -
level marijuana possession for misdemeanors.
«Some of our police officers are making race - based discretionary decisions on who they're going to
arrest for low -
level marijuana possession,» said Leroy Gadsden, the president of a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Jamaica, Queens, and the chairman of the criminal justice committee for the statewide N.A.A.C.P. «Therefore, of course, if you're a young, black male, even a female, you're going to feel that you're being targeted when you notice that your white counterparts are not being
arrested for the same thing.»
The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said that half of the 6,200 people who were charged with low -
level marijuana possession last year in Manhattan had never been
arrested before.