Rachael Marglous

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Each year, police in the United States conduct more than 20 million traffic stops, making them the most common interaction between civilians and law enforcement. A significant portion of these stops are for minor infractions that have little to no impact on traffic safety such as a dangling air freshener, broken taillight, or expired registration. These stops divert police resources away from addressing dangerous driving, undermine community trust, and disproportionately target Black drivers and drivers with low income.   In response, a group of organizations has committed to building on the growing momentum nationwide for modernizing roadway safety by refocusing traffic enforcement. This new coalition, Traffic Safety For All (TS4A), will coordinate and educate stakeholders on the importance of limiting low-level traffic stops and allowing law enforcement to focus on addressing offenses that are central to causing crashes and traffic fatalities. To that end, the Vera Institute of Justice created […]

Communities that do not trust law enforcement are less safe. That means that law enforcement that does not work to earn that trust is working against the interest of public safety. This basic common sense—supported by near scientific consensus—is why we are so disappointed that Mayor Eric Adams just vetoed the How Many Stops Act (HMSA). The HMSA consists of two bills that would simply require the NYPD to reveal how many people it stops and allow the community of New York to demand change based on those numbers. These basic provisions are already in place across states such as California, Connecticut, and Virginia. But, more importantly, they are the foundation of trust. Show your community what you do. Let them respond. Mayor Adams’ decision is particularly disheartening for Black and Latinx communities who have faced the worst of the NYPD’s excesses in the past. And, given the national attention

The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) applauds President Biden’s recent steps toward ending the criminalization of marijuana possession and agrees wholeheartedly with his statement that “sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives–for conduct that is legal in many states, [and] that’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction.” Aggressive enforcement of marijuana possession laws has forced hundreds of thousands of people, disproportionately Black and Brown people, into the country’s criminal legal systems unnecessarily; the President’s decision to pardon those convicted of simple marijuana possession at the federal level is a crucial step toward ending that injustice. U.S. policies concerning marijuana use have long been rooted in racism, beginning with White backlash to early 20th-century Mexican immigration, when concerted efforts were made to link marijuana with “violence, crime, and other socially deviant behaviors”; prohibition soon followed. In the 21st century, young Black and Brown people have