Advocates Respond to Mayor de Blasio’s New Marijuana Enforcement Policy

In response to Mayor de Blasio unveiling a NYPD-created plan to change marijuana enforcement, Communities United for Police Reform released the following statement from spokesperson Monifa Bandele, a Senior Vice President at MomsRising.

“If the mayor wanted to create a plan to make racial disparities in marijuana enforcement worse, he’s accomplished it with this. By allowing the NYPD to create a plan that feeds off of and widens disparities in the criminal justice system, Mayor de Blasio has failed to show leadership. The attempt to move some arrests to summons also does nothing to address disparities. The de Blasio administration refuses to fulfill its commitment to publicly report the demographic data on each particular type of summons, hiding the racial disparities in the summons system. Therefore, all this plan will do is push the racial disparities to the summons system and then hide them from the public. The NYPD must stop its discriminatory targeting of certain New Yorkers for marijuana enforcement – that’s the way to end the racial disparities.”

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About Communities United for Police Reform

Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) is an unprecedented campaign to end discriminatory policing practices in New York, and to build a lasting movement that promotes public safety and policing practices based on cooperation and respect– not discriminatory targeting and harassment.

CPR brings together a movement of community members, lawyers, researchers and activists to work for change. The partners in this campaign come from all 5 boroughs, from all walks of life and represent many of those unfairly targeted the most by the NYPD. CPR is fighting for reforms that will promote community safety while ensuring that the NYPD protects and serves all New Yorkers.

Learn more: http://changethenypd.org/
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