The Legal Aid Society, ahead of a City Council oversight hearing on Mayor Eric Adams’ regressive blueprint to further public safety, released an analysis of NYPD data which reveals that broken-windows policing continues to target communities of color at a disproportionate rate, as reported by the New York Daily News.

According to arrest data from 2021, 91 percent of the 1,524 broken windows arrests reviewed by The Legal Aid Society were of Black, Latino, and other non-white New Yorkers. The arrests were for charges including driving without a valid license, loitering, MTA fare evasion, open container, public urination, and other unspecified broken-windows offenses charged as violations.

“The NYPD’s racially disparate broken windows enforcement raises serious concerns about whether the Department can carry out this new Quality of Life Initiative in a lawful manner and without further alienating the residents of predominantly Black and Latinx neighborhoods being targeted for the most aggressive enforcement,” said Molly Griffard, a staff attorney with the Cop Accountability Project at The Legal Aid Society. “The NYPD should not be doubling down on this debunked policing strategy that doesn’t make us any safer and only further exacerbates racial disparities in New York’s criminal legal system.”