NCJ Number
93035
Date Published
1984
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This report notes that major crime in New York City declined for the second year in a row (5 percent in 1982 and 10 percent in 1983), but emphasizes that current efforts must continue and new prograns must be initiated to improve the city's quality of life.
Abstract
Other important developments in 1983 include the establishment of a sentencing guidelines commission to institute a determinate sentencing system and the creation of a comprehensive State corrections plan providing for 8,000 additional prison spaces and more funds for alternatives to incarceration. Police and prosecutorial efforts aimed at violent and career criminals resulted in 10,600 of these offenders sentenced to prison in 1983 compared to 5,800 in 1979. Total police strength in New York City has declined since the mid-1970's, and the city needs more police to control crime and disorder. In addition, the Commission urges stepping up the campaign against organized crime and drug trafficking by adopting an Organized Crime Control Act and enacting a forfeiture statute for property used to commit crime. It also recommends merging all trial courts to allow a single judge to handle an individual case from arraignment to disposition, adopting the Federal jury selection process, reforming the insanity defense, eliminating mandatory jury trials for Class A misdemeanors, and allowing defendants engaged in a criminal enterprise to be joined in a single trial. The Commission emphasizes the need to pay greater attention to seemingly harmless 'quality of life' crime, such as low-level drug abuse, turnstile jumping, and harassment. Finally, crime has a profoundly negative effect on the city's economic health by discouraging businesses to locate there or forcing them to move, thus reducing jobs in already economically depressed areas. The report contains 15 footnotes and tables.