In a move aimed at dampening the impact of “broken windows” policing, the New York City Council on Wednesday passed bills to create a civil process for some of the most common low-level infractions observed by police officers, including public drinking and public urination.
The passage of the bills, known collectively as the Criminal Justice Reform Act and spearheaded by the Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, was the most significant step yet toward reducing the burden of a two-decade-old policing policy that treats public disorder as harbingers of more dangerous offenses, and has resulted in hundreds of thousands of outstanding criminal court warrants for minor infractions.
“Lives and trajectories will be changed because of what we are set to pass today,” Ms. Mark-Viverito, a Democrat, said shortly before the vote.
The eight bills, introduced in February, passed with strong majorities in the 51-member Council and have the support of the Police Department, which preserves the power to arrest offenders if necessary, and of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called them “crucial” to the goal of “building a fairer criminal justice system.”
Council officials estimated that after the legislation takes effect next year, more than 100,000 cases would be diverted from the state’s criminal court system annually, sending them instead to a civil system overseen by a city agency.
The offenses included in the bills, which also cover littering and excessive noise, are part of the city’s administrative code and make up a large percentage of the roughly 300,000 criminal summonses issued by officers last year, many in minority neighborhoods. Under the legislation, most violations of parks department rules, like being in a park after dark, will also be downgraded to violations from misdemeanors.
The Council does not have the power to change the way courts handle minor crimes under state law, like marijuana possession or fare evasion.
“We pledged to reduce unnecessary arrests while protecting the quality of life of all our residents,” Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement, “and this legislation is an important step toward this essential goal.”
But the ultimate impact of the bills will depend on the degree to which police officers forgo their power to issue criminal summonses, and instead make use of the new civil forms, both of which will be carried by patrol officers. The Police Department and the Council are still negotiating over guidelines for when each would be used, with the civil tickets expected to serve as the default approach and criminal summonses issued for recidivists and those with warrants.
Jason Stern, a lawyer who has specialized in public urination cases, said officers appeared to have already scaled back since the legislation was introduced this year. “My phone stopped ringing,” Mr. Stern said. “My friends in the court tell me there’s almost nothing coming in.”
Officers already use civil summonses for various offenses that end up outside the criminal justice system, including for bicycling on the sidewalk (Traffic Court) and for turnstile jumpers in the subway (Civil Transit Court).
The civil hearings for offenses under the new legislation will be handled by the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, which would need to be expanded to handle the influx of new cases. The agency already handles some summonses from police officers, often related to violations by street vendors. The estimated cost of the measures is about $8 million in the first year, Council officials said, with roughly a quarter of that going to setting up the new civil hearing process. (Fines will be payable by mail or online; a hearing is required for those challenging a ticket.)
For public urination, the fines increase on a sliding scale: $75 for a first offense; $250 to $350 for a second offense within a year; and $350 to $450 for a third offense over that same period.
Failure to pay a ticket would result in a civil judgment rather than a criminal court warrant. Indigent offenders could be offered community service in lieu of a fine under the legislation.
Some reform advocates expressed only measured support. Monifa Bandele, of Communities United for Police Reform, said the legislation was “not police reform” and “does not disrupt discriminatory broken windows policing that propels racial disparities.”
As for the citywide summons court, where recipients of criminal summonses must still go, it is in the process of moving to a newly constructed space on the 16th floor of the Manhattan Municipal Building by December, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state court system. Its current home, at 346 Broadway, is being converted into luxury condominiums.
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A version of this article appears in print on May 26, 2016, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Council Approves Bills to Divert Minor Offenders From the Courts.