Post by Moses on May 4, 2005 5:21:30 GMT -5
May 4, 2005
Lacking $2 Bus Fare to Shelter, Homeless Get a Free Ride, to Jail
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The M35 bus at night is a place of weary faces and empty pockets. It runs from Spanish Harlem to the largest men's homeless shelter in the city. Every night, men file on to get to a place to sleep. Sometimes they pay the $2 fare; sometimes they don't.
Other riders have recently appeared, still scruffy but with a different goal. They are undercover police officers, there to arrest fare-beaters.
The arrests are part of a policy that began in the 1990's, when the New York City police took aim at minor crimes, like unlicensed street peddling and fare-beating. Since then, violent crime has fallen sharply, but arrests for minor crimes remain high. Misdemeanor arrests are up by 60 percent from 1990.
Arrests for minor crimes, the city says, lead to people the police are already looking for and deter more serious crimes.
Proof that it works, officials say, is in the vastly improved statistics on serious crime. Defense lawyers argue that the arrests are unfair because those arrested do not have fare money and pose no threat to society.
The M35 bus arrests offer a vivid look at the reality behind the debate. They began several years ago, after a complaint by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that a rowdy group of riders had tried to throw a driver off the bus for challenging them over the fare. Since then, undercover officers have monitored the route. The bus starts at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, crosses the Triborough Bridge and reaches the shelters on Wards Island in less than 10 minutes.
Homeless men and the lawyers who defend them say that the city created a Catch-22 when it designated the shelter as the place to sleep but then started arresting people who could not pay for the bus to get there. Even if they wanted to walk to the shelter, the men said, they could not, because the only footbridge from Manhattan is closed in the late fall and winter and at other times closes after 8 p.m.
"You're setting me up," said Shavar Shaver, 21, of Brooklyn, who was arrested with five other people for not paying his fare in January. "They're the easiest victims, the homeless people. It's entrapment. Why don't you go fight some real crime?"
Police and city officials say there is no excuse for fare-beating. One of the shelter operators runs a van service to Manhattan from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, said a spokesman for the city's Department of Homeless Services. Those who can show written proof of appointments in the city are given bus fare.
But the homeless men said the van service was not always reliable. Nicholas Haddon, 53, was arrested last month for fare-beating on the M35 after what he said was a long wait for a van that never arrived.
"I'm frustrated," said Mr. Haddon, who was evicted along with his roommate from a rented room in the Bronx. "There are some of us who are trying to better our lives, and get out of the system, but they're making it harder for us."
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said officers were not harassing homeless men but were simply reacting to complaints from riders and the transportation authority. He said in a telephone interview that it was not unusual for the police to focus on fare-beaters to keep them from committing other crimes, and that the police often found people with warrants out for their arrest. The men are not immune from the law just because they are homeless, Mr. Browne said.
"We're not trying to prevent someone from going to a shelter, but at the same time you can't have large numbers of individuals evading the fare and essentially turning the bus - a public transportation facility - into their own vehicle," he said.
Indeed, that is exactly what M35 drivers interviewed along the route say the men are doing.
"They take it for granted that this is their bus," said one driver who asked that his name not be used because he had not been authorized to speak. "You can tell; it doesn't smell so good in here," he added, saying the homeless men often smelled of marijuana and beer.
Still, many drivers expressed sympathy for the men, with one saying he had developed a code to warn riders that the police might be on the bus. All the drivers allowed men who did not pay to board. The drivers say they are not required to force payment from the men.
"It's really sad," another driver said. "I've seen guys deteriorating right before my eyes."
Officers are cleverly disguised. On a night in late March, two men in scruffy clothing sat on the bus. One carried a pizza box. The other had a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. They suddenly stood, flashed badges and arrested a rider for not paying. In another arrest, officers posed as boyfriend and girlfriend, chatting in the back of the bus.
As the cases have made their way into court, they have confounded judges. Some refuse to give any sentence and order the defendants released, once they have pleaded guilty to the typical charge a misdemeanor crime of theft of services.
"I have been seeing these cases over and over, but nobody is telling me exactly what's going on," said Judge Evelyn Laporte of Manhattan Criminal Court.
In interviews, five criminal court judges who spoke on the condition of anonymity questioned the wisdom of the arrests, saying that they wasted judicial resources. A court system spokesman said he could not quantify the cost of arraigning one defendant, a process that involves a judge, a prosecutor, court officers and a court stenographer. Most defendants also spend the night in jail, which costs $163, according to a breakdown by the city.
"I consistently put on the record how outraged I am by the whole thing," said Kathryn E. Freed, an arraignment court judge. "It's a complete waste of the court's time. It takes a lot of person-power to process them, house them and feed them. Meanwhile, the shelter, where they're heading, is set up to do just that."
Perhaps most frustrating, some of the homeless men said, is that even after moving through the legal system, they are in the same predicament they were the day before: They still have to get to the shelter.
"It's going through the system for nothing," said Howard Breely, 49, who was recently released from a drug treatment program at a shelter on Wards Island. "I still have to get back there."
Since its financial troubles last year, the Legal Aid Society, the largest criminal defense organization in the city, no longer gives out subway fare to poor clients.
Many of the fare-beaters have criminal records, which means that judges cannot dismiss the cases. The result is misdemeanor convictions without any further jail time. The men can also lose a shelter bed if they are away overnight, forcing them to be reprocessed.
Even so, the arrests seem to be having the effect desired by the authorities. The drivers say they feel safer with the police present, and payments have shot up.
The banter on the bus also speaks of compliance. One night last month, a gaunt man in a wheelchair, who identified himself only as Smokey, shouted to a friend who was boarding that he was safe from arrest since everyone had seen him pay his fare.
"I ain't getting arrested for no $2," his friend said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
