NYC Needs Youth Investments, Not Stop and Frisk
Data publications
December 16, 2024
On Monday, December 16, Policy and Advocacy Associate Caitlyn Passaretti submitted testimony to the NYC Council Committee on Public Safety’s Oversight Hearing on the NYPD’s Use of Stop-and-Frisk and Other Investigative Encounters. On behalf of CCC, the testimony discusses the consequences of policing practices that, due to systemic racism, target Black and Brown New Yorkers disproportionately and were found unconstitutional in the past. Rather than punitive approaches, data and testimony from youth and families shows that robustly funded services, including youth development programs, employment, housing, food access, and educational supports, have a stronger and more positive impact on community safety as well as significant benefits to family and child well-being.
Read the full testimony below.
Testimony of Caitlyn Passaretti
Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
NYC Council Committee on Public Safety
Oversight Hearing on the NYPD’s Use of Stop-and-Frisk and Other Investigative Encounters
December 16th, 2024
Since 1944, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York has served as an independent, multi-issue child advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring every New York child is healthy, housed, educated, and safe. CCC does not accept or receive public resources, provide direct services, or represent a sector or workforce; our priority is improving outcomes for children and families through civic engagement, research, and advocacy. We document the facts, engage and mobilize New Yorkers, and advocate for solutions to ensure the wellbeing of New York’s children, families, and communities.
We would like to thank Chair Salaam and members of the Public Safety Committee for hosting this pivotally important hearing on the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk. The central ingredients for youth and community safety are robustly funded services, including youth development programs, employment, housing, food access, and educational supports, among others. Currently, teen and youth unemployment rates in NYC are higher than national averages, at 27% for 16–19-year-olds and 15% for 20–24-year-olds. In 2022, 12.3% of youth ages 16-24 in NYC were disconnected, meaning they were neither in school nor working.1 Our city must invest in initiatives to support young people and promote their mobility and well-being. This testimony will outline the NYPD data demonstrating a disturbing increase in stop and frisk and we will urge the city to listen to youth identified needs and solutions to make communities safer.
Data
Recent NYPD data indicates a dramatic increase in criminalization and unconstitutional stops of Black and Brown New Yorkers, including youth. Stops for those 18 and under have risen 146% from 2021 to 2023, bringing back broken windows policing practices that were found to be unconstitutional over a decade ago.2 During the same time period (2021-2023), the number of calls received by NYC’s Civilian Complaint Review Board has risen by 47%. Of these complaints, 65% are for abuse of authority and most of these abuse of authority complaints included complaints for unwarranted stops.3 Furthermore, 53% of stops for those 18 and under are initiated due to suspected possession of a criminal weapon but only 9% of these stops end in arrest for weapon possession – a significant discrepancy. Many of these children are frisked in these encounters (68%) but only 8% of children frisked by the police are asked for their consent. Stop and frisk continues to be a racist practice – 65% of stops for children under 18 were Black.4
Investments in Youth
Change is needed now. The city must prioritize youth investments to support mobility, well-being and sustainable community safety. In citywide surveys, participatory research, and the Youth Agenda, youth have consistently shared what they want: equitable education, employment opportunities, affordable housing, access to behavioral health care, food security and the creation of community based third spaces. Investing in such services and resources would provide more youth with opportunities, places of connection, mentorship, and sense of community. Unfortunately, the Adams administration has cut funding from COMPASS afterschool programs, as well as a host of mentorship and alternative to incarceration programs that were supporting justice involved youth. And the affordability crisis facing our city leaves housing, food, behavioral health care unacceptably out of reach for far too many.
Recommendations
We can and must do better. We must put an end to unconstitutional stops of youth, and we must invest in them and their communities.
- Dismantle and cease use of the NYPD gang database which is analogous to stop and frisk – aggressively sweeping up young people, nearly all of them Black and Brown, and increasing their exposure to the criminal legal system.
- Invest in employment and vocational training in trades and emerging industries,
- Invest in SYEP and Work Learn Grow
- Ensure investments in community programming expands the capacity of essential service providers to remain open with expanded hours evenings, weekends, and holidays
- Implement City FHEP reforms to promote housing stability
- Prioritize staffing at Nonprofits and City agencies to facilitate benefits access, and
- Restore funding to COMPASS Afterschool and ATI/ATD programs
- Baseline funding for the Mental Health Continuum
- Invest wraparound funding in school-based mental health clinics to enable them to cover service costs that are not covered through the current Medicaid reimbursement model.
- Fund the Youth Mental Health Initiative through a new City Council Initiative to provide flexible mental health services for youth programs run by CBOs
