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Brooklyn Bureau: NYPD Towers May Defuse Cop, Community Friction
Some Brooklynites who live and work near the borough’s two police watchtowers say the observation posts are affecting more than the incidence of crime.
Sales of HIV Meds Catch Lawmakers' Eyes
Prosecutors and legislators report an increase in illegal sales of HIV medication by people looking to feed their families or support drug habits. Will tougher criminal penalties slow the market?
Mixed Evidence of Methadone Crackdown
An advocacy group's survey says police harassment of methadone patients is common. Statistics suggest methadone-related arrests are rare.
In Debate Over New Jail, City Says An Aim Is To Prevent Violence
Hoping to reduce fights, prevent suicide and help inmates avoid returning to jail, New York is changing the way it evaluates new prisoners—and building a new jail. Advocates are split on whether that will solve the problem.
A Years-Long Struggle For Prison Moms
Some women who give birth behind bars find new motivation to stay straight. Others continue to wrestle with drugs and the challenges of parenthood.
Love In A Time Of Incarceration
In 1999, an officer and an inmate at Manhattan's Bayview Correctional Facility fell in love and started having sex, with consequences that reverberate today.
For White Marijuana Users, Odds Of Arrest Low
While police crackdown on drug deals in mostly minority neighborhoods, the drug trade among whites in New York City operates with relative impunity.
For Bloomberg, Race Questions Are New
Concerns about the racial contours of city hiring have resurrected issues that bedeviled past mayors, but over which Mayor Bloomberg has largely avoided confrontation.
Life in the Towers: 'I'm Tired Of Ducking Bullets'
A day at River Park Towers reveals a lot about what low-income New Yorkers face from government, management and each other.
Pot Smoke, Dead Elevators & Killer Paint: Life in the Towers
River Park Towers is just one building, but a day spent with its residents revealed it has a world of problems, none of them simple.
Billboard Owner Censors Marijuana Reform Ad
The ad would have cited the hypocrisy of arresting users when nearly half of all New Yorkers, including Bloomberg, have tried the drug.
Paterson Moves to Pardon Convicted Immigrants
Now What?
The Struggle for a Solution
The Great Escape
"If You Hit 65 Percent of the Population, That's the Tipping Point."
Becoming a Deejay,
Leaving the P-J's
More Than Words?
Bloomberg and Race
The Forty Years War
Hooked: Four decades of drug war in New York City: Marijuana
Soldiers, Prisoners, Casualties—A Drug War's Characters
Just because the drug trade and the law enforcement crusade against it aren't as obvious as they were in the past doesn't mean drugs and the war against them have disappeared from New York.
Heroin: From the Civil War to the 70s, and Beyond
The heroin story of the 1990s was ignored, by and large, until it became so popular that some among the white celebrity set developed addictions that subsequently received a good deal of publicity.
Drugs
Beginning in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon, the War on Drugs has fought dealers and addicts for four decades. Though originally focusing on big dealers and cartels, officials now arrest many first-time offenders for petty charges and minimal possession. From 2002 through 2008, over 700,000 people were arrested on drug charges in New York City.
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Do Housing Voucher Households Cause Crime?
Potential neighbors often express worries that Housing Choice Voucher holders heighten crime. Yet no research systematically examines the link between the presence of voucher holders in a neighborhood and crime.
Doing Time
In 2008, 12,000 people were incarcerated in New York State on drug charges. Over the past 40 years the share of state prison cells occupied by drug convicts soared, then steadily declined. (From City Limits' summer 2009 investigation of the drug war in New York City).
