New York is experiencing a rise in squatting due to the state's complex legal process for landlords. Housing courts are overly sympathetic to trespassers acting as tenants. In response, the New York legislature passed a measure in April to exclude unauthorized occupiers from being labeled as "tenants." The new law opens the possibility of a criminal-justice solution to the state’s squatting problem. A pivotal question remains: Will New York’s 62 district attorneys, encumbered by a decade of pro-defendant policy reforms, successfully prosecute these non-tenant crimes? Recent experience suggests that they will struggle to do so, especially in trespass cases, writes Hannah E. Meyers in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal. The chances of a conviction under New York’s current criminal justice policies are slim.
Overwhelmed, prosecutors triage their caseloads, dismissing lower-level offenses (like trespass) or declining to prosecute them altogether. Still, more cases are now tossed under New York’s “speedy trial” law, whereby cases are dismissed simply because prosecutors run out of time to compile the now-required load of paperwork, and not because justice warrants dismissal. In 2019, the year before statewide bail, discovery, and parole reforms took effect, Queens dismissed 38% of all criminal cases. By last year, the rate was 56%. For misdemeanors like trespass, the dismissal rate rose from 45% to an average of 74%. Conviction rates have also plummeted. In 2019, around half of all prosecuted New York City cases resulted in convictions, compared with barely a quarter of cases in the years since. The actual number of cases disposed at arraignment also fell drastically—from 3,360 to 267. Even guilty pleas carry fewer consequences, as overwhelmed prosecutors downgrade charges at record rates. Trespassers have little reason to fear being arraigned, held in jail, or convicted for their crimes.