Well the mourning period for my brother is over and still I remain in the States. I can rationalise it as the desire to find a cheaper return fare to Manila but the truth of the matter is that I always fall into a sort of anti-routine when in New York City.
The city I knew as a younger man is dead and buried. Open air drug markets where people of every "race" and class stood shoulder to shoulder impatiently waiting to buy heroin and cocaine in standardised packages that would make any Fortune 500 Marketing Rep green with envy...The snow white powders that were so uniformly packaged as to be safe to use after 5 years sober are gone forever, as are the days of quinine and Bonita (lactose).
One thing that has stayed the same, amazingly, is the New York Justice System's attitude towards these substances. New York City remains the only place in the Western Hemisphere where possession of heroin and cocaine are Misdemeanour Offences. If you don't rack up 3 arrests in a 6 month period you will merely be fined. Should you walk across the bridge to New Jersey you can get as much as 10 years in prison for that same offence, though usually you face only 3 to 5 years.
It is extremely rare to be able to point to a specific time in trying to pinpoint change. In New York City's case it all went bad when that closet Nazi, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani decided to target misdemeanour offences as the way in which to gain a handle on New York's famously high crime rate...1997 .
A Transit Police tactician had instituted the drive against Fare Beating (people evading the subway train and bus fare) as way in which to lower violent crime rates throughout the huge transit system. The plan worked on the premise that most violent criminals live prolifically illegal lifestyles. The same geniuses packing automatic pistols are ALSO the scientists who wait for a train to pull into a station and then quickly hop over the turnstiles as they seek to save that precious 75 Cents (the cost at the time,today it is US2.25). One would think that common sense dictates that someone carrying a pistol would be intelligent enough to pay the paltry loose change needed for the fare. Coomon sense doesn't rate too high on most criminals intellectual inventory.
When the Transit Police began actually targeting Fare Beating the gun collars went up in a parallel trend. More importantly, violent crime went down at a parallel rate.
Here to fore New York City's regular police force didn't touch drug possession cases. There was a specific unit, "TNT" (Tactical Narcotics Taskforce) that handled those and only did so on Tuesdays and Thursdays in very specific areas. Weeks before a 5 square block area was targeted its movers and shakers as well as its junkies knew it was time to find their fun elsewhere. Still, amazingly, there were always people desperate to buy and sell in targeted areas as they tried capitalising on the lack of competition. Customers were usually provided by people from outside the neighbourhood or those who only bought drugs sporadically. TNT would swoop down, fill a police stepvan and cart them off in lots of 36. All but the most habitual arrestees would then be released by a Court System obsessed with numbers as opposed to actual, tangible results.
Enter the benevolent dictator, Guiliani;
Taking the Tranist Police tactician he asked the man to formulate a blueprint that would be applicable over the entire city. Where as before police wouldn't even look at you unless you were absolutely brazen and used in front of them, now anyone even suspected of possessing was stopped and frisked (physically searched). Likewise they took aim at so called "Quality of Life" crimes. Drinking in public, even with a paper bag covering the container got you an arrest. An arrest got you a trip through the City Justice System, not a simple "Catch and Release" with a Ticket as had been the case before.
Before long the violent crime rate showed very marked results. When, by 1998, these results showed sustainability New York City began to attract real investment. Before 1997 people fled the city. Neighbourhoods dried up, gentrification was a dream, and corporate attention wasn't realised even with extremely dynamic tax incentives.
By 2000 New York City was an entirely different city. Huge ghettos became chic neighbourhhods, like DUMBO and the Lower East Side. Today even the South Bronx is filled with young, white families. It really is an amazing transformation...and I fucken hate it!
To be continued...
The city I knew as a younger man is dead and buried. Open air drug markets where people of every "race" and class stood shoulder to shoulder impatiently waiting to buy heroin and cocaine in standardised packages that would make any Fortune 500 Marketing Rep green with envy...The snow white powders that were so uniformly packaged as to be safe to use after 5 years sober are gone forever, as are the days of quinine and Bonita (lactose).
One thing that has stayed the same, amazingly, is the New York Justice System's attitude towards these substances. New York City remains the only place in the Western Hemisphere where possession of heroin and cocaine are Misdemeanour Offences. If you don't rack up 3 arrests in a 6 month period you will merely be fined. Should you walk across the bridge to New Jersey you can get as much as 10 years in prison for that same offence, though usually you face only 3 to 5 years.
It is extremely rare to be able to point to a specific time in trying to pinpoint change. In New York City's case it all went bad when that closet Nazi, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani decided to target misdemeanour offences as the way in which to gain a handle on New York's famously high crime rate...1997 .
A Transit Police tactician had instituted the drive against Fare Beating (people evading the subway train and bus fare) as way in which to lower violent crime rates throughout the huge transit system. The plan worked on the premise that most violent criminals live prolifically illegal lifestyles. The same geniuses packing automatic pistols are ALSO the scientists who wait for a train to pull into a station and then quickly hop over the turnstiles as they seek to save that precious 75 Cents (the cost at the time,today it is US2.25). One would think that common sense dictates that someone carrying a pistol would be intelligent enough to pay the paltry loose change needed for the fare. Coomon sense doesn't rate too high on most criminals intellectual inventory.
When the Transit Police began actually targeting Fare Beating the gun collars went up in a parallel trend. More importantly, violent crime went down at a parallel rate.
Here to fore New York City's regular police force didn't touch drug possession cases. There was a specific unit, "TNT" (Tactical Narcotics Taskforce) that handled those and only did so on Tuesdays and Thursdays in very specific areas. Weeks before a 5 square block area was targeted its movers and shakers as well as its junkies knew it was time to find their fun elsewhere. Still, amazingly, there were always people desperate to buy and sell in targeted areas as they tried capitalising on the lack of competition. Customers were usually provided by people from outside the neighbourhood or those who only bought drugs sporadically. TNT would swoop down, fill a police stepvan and cart them off in lots of 36. All but the most habitual arrestees would then be released by a Court System obsessed with numbers as opposed to actual, tangible results.
Enter the benevolent dictator, Guiliani;
Taking the Tranist Police tactician he asked the man to formulate a blueprint that would be applicable over the entire city. Where as before police wouldn't even look at you unless you were absolutely brazen and used in front of them, now anyone even suspected of possessing was stopped and frisked (physically searched). Likewise they took aim at so called "Quality of Life" crimes. Drinking in public, even with a paper bag covering the container got you an arrest. An arrest got you a trip through the City Justice System, not a simple "Catch and Release" with a Ticket as had been the case before.
Before long the violent crime rate showed very marked results. When, by 1998, these results showed sustainability New York City began to attract real investment. Before 1997 people fled the city. Neighbourhoods dried up, gentrification was a dream, and corporate attention wasn't realised even with extremely dynamic tax incentives.
By 2000 New York City was an entirely different city. Huge ghettos became chic neighbourhhods, like DUMBO and the Lower East Side. Today even the South Bronx is filled with young, white families. It really is an amazing transformation...and I fucken hate it!
To be continued...
