The New Deal for New York Justice
Young people recognize that the issue of inequality has three, connected faces: an economic crisis, a climate crisis, and a criminal justice crisis. Our criminal justice system disproportionately affects those from minority communities with the highest unemployment rates — the same communities most affected by climate change because of proximity to polluting industries and lack of greenspace. In hindsight, we can see that the last generation’s policy went wrong because it focused primarily on symptoms of crisis, like crime rates. Addressing only one crisis’s symptoms disregards how systems of inequality interact with and strengthen each other. For example, improvements to the criminal justice system must exist alongside addressing the economic crises that fuel crime. Young people know that we cannot hesitate to implement transformative policy, as these crises have been developing over decades and we are entering into an increasingly stratified world.
As an outspoken and nationally recognized progressive, Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou should support the New Deal for New York Justice (NDNYJ).
The NDNYJ will reduce New York State’s incarceration levels, mitigating the impact of the criminal justice system on communities of color in the long term. First, New York will reinstate the ban on cash bail which was rolled back this spring. Across the United States, 70% of those incarcerated in local jails have not been convicted of a crime, often because they cannot afford cash bail. 69% of these people are people of color. The original bail reform bill led to an automatic reduction in jail population, which was down 27.9% in January 2020 from January 2019. Second, New York State will eliminate mandatory minimums and reduce felony non-violent drug crimes to misdemeanors. When Connecticut — which has a similar incarceration rate as a percentage of population — implemented these measures, it achieved a 25% reduction in its prison population. Third, New York will limit the instances in which public schools can expel students. Students who are suspended or expelled from school are three times more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system, so Connecticut decreased pre-trial admissions for people under 25 by 63% by limiting expulsions. Combining a roughly 30% decrease in jail population from banning cash bail with a 25% decrease in incarcerated population from sentencing reform, New York will likely see a total decrease of 30% of its entire incarcerated population in several years.
New York spends over $69,000 per incarcerated person. Thus, even a 25% decrease in the incarcerated population will save $1.7 billion yearly. This money will go towards a state-wide jobs guarantee program, in which individuals who cannot find private-sector employment are guaranteed a public sector job. In New York, these jobs will address our climate crisis by fortifying infrastructure, transitioning the state to green energy, and developing community agriculture practices to counter “food deserts.” Using the practice of “targeted universalism,” the program will begin in the cities and towns throughout the state with the highest levels of unemployment and incarceration rates — likely Buffalo and Yonkers. Thus, the jobs guarantee provides a method of redress for communities most harmed by New York’s justice system and environmental racism.
One year of wages for 5% of New York’s unemployed population — the population in the test rollout — will cost around $1 billion, leaving the extra $700 million for overhead. As the program expands, a tax on New York’s billionaires should supplement funding until the program will begin to pay for itself. New York will save money by spending less on Unemployment Insurance and other anti-poverty measures.
The NDNYJ is the best solution to the related crises of incarceration, employment, and the climate crisis, as it recognizes that any solution must target the intersection of these crises. Using the principles of targeted universalism, this financially feasible policy focuses on the most affected groups to achieve the universal goal of a greener and more equitable state.