Jaywalking is often considered to be the norm in New York City. As bustling crowds often meet seemingly endless traffic lights, locals and tourists take the chance to cross streets when given the chance. While this has been the City's traditions for decades, it hasn't stopped NYPD from ticketing hundreds of people, mostly people of color, for the violation every year.
New data from the City Council shows the local police department issued 786 jaywalking summonses during the first six months of the year— and only 15% of them were given to white people. Black and Hispanic pedestrians, by comparison, received 51% and 26% of those tickets respectively.
These figures show a stark increase in the law's enforcement. The number of summonses in these past six months have already surpassed all of the tickets issued in 2023, which were 426.
"They [NYPD] find any small reasons to lock anybody from non-white communities up. I grew up in Brooklyn, I've seen people get ticketed and arrested for jaywalking," said Gladys DeSantiago, a Downtown Brooklyn resident. "Because a jaywalk turns into a stop and frisk, which turns into a whole criminal charge."
Neighborhoods where police issued a disproportionate number of jaywalking tickets this year include Downtown Brooklyn, Coney Island, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Jamaica, Gothamist reports. In comparison, the neighborhoods with the lowest number of tickets include affluent areas like the Upper West Side, Williamsburg, the Financial District and the Upper West Side.
Those issued tickets for jaywalking in New York City can face fines of up to $250 thanks to a law that's been in place since 1958. The City Council was slated to decriminalize the act earlier this month, but lawmakers abruptly pulled the bill before it moved to a full vote in the City Council for revisions after advocates raised concerns over the language they said would provide legal cover for drivers who hit pedestrians.
The stop-and-frisk tactic was common on the streets of New York for decades, particularly targeting Black and Latino communities. In it, officers stopped people they believed were involved in crimes and then searched them for weapons that rarely materialized.
The practice, which instilled widespread anger in the neighborhoods it was mostly used, was deemed unconstitutional in a 2013 court ruling. But this month, Mylan L. Denerstein, a court-appointed monitor, found that specialized units revived by Mayor Eric Adams to seize guns were still stopping, frisking and searching people in violation of their civil rights.
The City Council figures come as a new report by James Yates, a retired New York State judge, reveals the NYPD has repeatedly failed to punish officers who have violated the rights of people stopped on the street, the New York Times reports.
The new 503-page document shows that the police department, since 2013, has "demonstrated an inordinate willingness to excuse illegal stops, frisks and searches in the name of 'good faith' or 'lack of malintention,' relegating constitutional adherence to a lesser rung of discipline," Yates writes.
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