Police say aggressive enforcement is essential to keep people safe, but critics say it does little to address the larger problem of drug trafficking.
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2023.The NYPD is making nearly twice as many narcotics arrests per month since Mayor Eric Adams took office — a strategy police officials say is key to reducing community violence, but that has alarmed public defenders and advocates.
But critics say cracking down on street-level drug crimes harks back to a 1990s policing mindset that does little to address larger drug trafficking patterns and unfairly targets Black and Latino New Yorkers in poor neighborhoods.from close range, knocking him off his moped and killing him. Police say the Duprey was fleeing from officers.
Police and court data show that misdemeanor drug arrests in the Bronx have also increased at a higher rate during Adams’ tenure than in any other borough. Police say the department's “precision policing” strategy under Adams has focused on targeting specific people and places rather than stopping broad swaths of New Yorkers as happened during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s expanded stop-and-frisk era in the early 2000s. The tactics have helped keep violent crimes like murders and shootings at their lowest rates since before the pandemic, according to police.
Police and prosecutors did not provide data on how many of the unit’s felony arrests ended in felony convictions, rather than being downgraded or dismissed. But in the borough as a whole, many felony drug charges are downgraded or dismissed, court data shows. Since Adams took office, just 18% of felony arrests in the Bronx — and 22% citywide — have ended in convictions, data shows.
The outcomes of drug cases can be arbitrary, sometimes hinging on how much time prosecutors have to scrutinize evidence, according to Snider. Ann Mathews, managing director of criminal defense at Bronx Defenders, said many of the cases are fraught with error.
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