Desk appearance tickets (DATs), also known as universal appearance tickets, are not yet universal for Black New Yorkers arrested for low level crimes, finds the Data Collaborative for Justice (DCJ) at John Jay College. And the alternative is usually a holding cell.
Mandates for police to issue DATs, which direct defendants to appear in court on their own after a misdemeanor or class E felony arrest instead of pre-arraignment detention, were passed through bail reform laws of 2019. But Black and brown New Yorkers receive DATs less frequently than white New Yorkers for similar offenses despite more uniform issuance criteria and legislative pressure statewide, the DCJ has found.
“Our question here that we were trying to answer is: are Black New Yorkers and Hispanic New Yorkers, basically non-white New Yorkers…being held after an arrest for the same charges compared to white New Yorkers?” said researcher Olive Lu. “We’re coming from the assumption that receiving a DAT is a better outcome than then being arrested and held. So are white New Yorkers receiving this better outcome compared to Black and Hispanic New Yorkers?”
To be clear, DAT issuance improvement rates for Black and brown New Yorkers were actually higher than for white New Yorkers between 2020 and 2022. Yet they are still 32 percent and 15 percent less likely to receive a DAT arraignment, respectively. The report questioned whether police were following the reforms properly given the disparities.
The statistics come from the New York State Office of Court Administration, which delineated arraignments from 42 of the state’s 62 counties between the start of 2019 to the end of 2022. Of the three regions examined, New York City issued the lowest rate of DATs. The Big Apple never surpassed the 50 percent threshold consistently held statewide and in the other two study areas. Suburban New York, classified as Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, boasted the highest rate at over 70 percent each year post-reform.
DAT issuance generally rose between 2019 and 2021, before tapering in 2022. The drop was the sharpest in New York City, from 45 to 32 percent. The sharp increase came immediately after the reforms, although COVID-19 slowed progress a year later.
Lu says the research also examined racial disparities in leniency for DAT arraignment absences. The findings suggest that while Black New Yorkers are the least likely to receive a DAT, they are most likely to receive a “failure to appear” warrant for a DAT arraignment. A provision was instituted shortly after the reforms, mandating an arraignment within 20 days after the DAT was issued, although the rule was suspended throughout the pandemic.
VOCAL-NY organizer Neil Berry recalls the time long before desk appearance tickets were issued for low level crimes. He vividly recounts his arrest over Memorial Day weekend in 1988, from wearing his summer outfit in the cold cell cramped past capacity to the bologna and cheese sandwiches spread across the floor.
“The pre-arraignment was probably the most traumatic part of all,” said Berry. “That trip from the police department to central booking, that was two days because it was the weekend of Memorial Day so [I] couldn’t see a judge until Monday…you talk about pre-arraignment, that’s where it all begins. That’s the journey of trauma.”
Sebastian Solomon, associate director for policy at the Vera Institute’s Greater Justice New York team, told the AmNews that criminal justice reform like the DAT policy removes barriers set by criminalization that often lead to recidivism. He added that those in pre-arraignment custody are innocent before proven guilty.
“People who tend to get arrested can’t necessarily just call out sick for several days on end,” said Solomon. “Even if they bail out, or in other ways, resolve the case quickly [like] pleading guilty, that can still have huge negative impacts on your life from loss of employment, to loss of housing, custody of children. To the extent that some of the population who are arrested are likely to have a mental health issue or substance use issue, you’re disconnected from that treatment and that instability can obviously exacerbate some of those symptoms.”
DCJ’s study is likely the most in-depth look at DAT reform since the bills were passed. Yet the measure arguably impacts the criminal justice legal system as much as its more scrutinized bail reform siblings, which focus on pre-trial detention after the arraignment.
“Those charges even though they make up the majority of things that people are arrested for on a daily basis aren’t as sensational,” said Lu.
