South Bronx and East New York Lead NYC in Littering and Panhandling Tickets, Analysis Finds

The Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College published an analysis this week showing that NYPD officers in the South Bronx and East New York, Brooklyn, issue criminal summonses for low-level offenses — including loitering, panhandling, and littering — at higher rates than anywhere else in the city. In 2025 and the first half of 2026, more than 60% of all loitering summonses citywide were written by officers in a single precinct, the 40th, in the South Bronx. More than a third of the city's panhandling complaints over that same period were also issued there. In East New York, officers in the 75th precinct issued 855 criminal summonses for alcohol in public — accounting for 8% of the citywide total. Researcher Michael Rempel, an author of the John Jay dashboard, said offenses such as open container violations and loitering are areas where officers exercise the most discretion, and that issuing them in large numbers is "clearly a choice." Nearly 82% of criminal summonses in the first half of 2026 were issued to Black and Hispanic New Yorkers. NYPD spokesperson Bradley Weekes linked the concentration of enforcement to rising 311 complaint volumes, noting calls in the 40th precinct are up 215% since 2015 and up 556% in the 75th precinct over the same period. A previous John Jay study found that only 9% of criminal summonses issued in 2024 ended in convictions, with 65% dismissed for paperwork problems or legal insufficiency.