Syringe access, syringe sharing, and police encounters among people who inject drugs in New York City: A community-level perspective

This chapter recovers the case of the Harlem Six to attest to the firmness of race as a crucial determinant in American notions of crime and delinquency. The progress made in the decade of delinquency was met by systemic and institutionalized racism in the 1960s. Efforts to create a fair and impartial juvenile justice system became a thing of the past, and black youths in New York City bore the brunt of inordinate police practices and, consequently, endured the stigma of criminality henceforth. With anticrime laws such as “stop-and-frisk” and “no-knock,” which contributed to disparate arrest rates and increased police encounters in predominantly black communities, New York City officials established a police state that created a climate for dissension. This tale of criminal injustice reveals the extent to which the community was compelled to go to protect its youths from the overwhelming power of the state.

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The Nonimpact of the Expanded Syringe Access Program upon Heroin Use, Injection Behaviours, and Crime Indicators in New York City and State

Justice Research and Policy ◽

10.3818/jrp.8.1.2006.27 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 27-49 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Bruce D. Johnson ◽

Andrew Golub ◽

Sherry Deren ◽

Don C. Des Jarlais ◽

Crystal Fuller ◽

...

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

York City ◽

Heroin Use ◽

Syringe Access ◽

Access Program

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The impact of COVID-19 on people who inject drugs in New York City: increased risk and decreased access to services

Harm Reduction Journal ◽

10.1186/s12954-021-00568-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yesenia Aponte-Melendez ◽

Pedro Mateu-Gelabert ◽

Chunki Fong ◽

Benjamin Eckhardt ◽

Shashi Kapadia ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

New York ◽

New York City ◽

Substance Use ◽

Risk Behaviors ◽

York City ◽

People Who Inject Drugs ◽

Study Group ◽

Injection Risk ◽

The Impact

Abstract Background While people who inject drugs (PWID) are vulnerable to the adverse outcomes of events like COVID-19, little is known regarding the impact of the current pandemic on PWID. We examine how COVID-19 has affected PWID in New York City across four domains: substance use, risk behaviors, mental health, and service utilization. Methods As part of a randomized trial to improve access to HCV treatment for PWID, we recruited 165 participants. Eligibility criteria included detectable HCV RNA and recent drug injection. The present cross-sectional analysis is based on a subsample of 106 participants. We compared responses between two separate samples: 60 participants interviewed prior to the pandemic (pre-COVID-19 sample) and 46 participants interviewed during the pandemic (COVID-19 sample). We also assessed differences by study group [accessible care (AC) and usual care (UC)]. Results Compared to the pre-COVID-19 sample, those interviewed during COVID-19 reported higher levels of mental health issues, syringe reuse, and alcohol consumption and greater reductions in syringe-service programs and buprenorphine utilization. In the analysis conducted by study group, the UC group reported significantly higher injection risk behaviors and lower access to buprenorphine treatment during COVID-19, while during the same period, the AC group reported lower levels of substance use and injection risk behaviors. Conclusion The current study provides insight on how COVID-19 has negatively affected PWID. Placing dispensing machines of harm-reduction supplies in communities where PWID live and increasing secondary exchange, mobile services, and mail delivery of supplies may help maintain access to lifesaving supplies during big events, such as COVID-19. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03214679. Registered July 11 2017. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03214679.

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Collateral Damage: The Health Effects of Invasive Police Encounters in New York City

10.31235/osf.io/y9x5t ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Abigail A. Sewell

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York City ◽

Health Effects ◽

York City ◽

Use Of Force ◽

Multiple Dimensions ◽

Force Increase ◽

Community Health Survey ◽

Police Encounters ◽

E Mail

In the 1990s New York City widened the surveillance reign of the criminal justice system to include minor offenses. One aspect of this public policy is a procedure known as Terry stops, which involves police temporarily detaining persons who may be acting criminally. While only a small percentage of these stops result in arrest, warrants, or the recovery of illegal materials, a sizeable portion become physically invasive (i.e., involve body searches and use of force). The health effects of invasive policing practices for the community at-large are unknown. Using microlevel health data from 2009-2012 NYC Community Health Survey nested within mesolevel data from the 2009-2012 NYC Stop, Question, and Frisk dataset, this study employs multilevel mixed effects models to evaluate contextual and ethnoracially-variant associations between invasive aspects of Terry stops and multiple dimensions of illness (poor/fair health, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma episodes, body weight). Terry stops are, in fact, associated with worse health. The most consistent Terry measures associated with illness is the likelihood that stops will result in frisking. More limited deleterious effects can be attributed to the likelihood that stops will result in use of force and to minority-to-white ratios of frisk and use of force. The health effects of Terry stops vary by ethnoracial group in complex ways. For instance, the minority-to-white frisking ratio and the likelihood that stops will involve use of force increase certain dimensions of illness for minorities; meanwhile, the minority-to-white use of force ratio reduces the likelihood of diabetes for Blacks.-Abigail A. Sewell, Ph.D.Assistant ProfessorDepartment of SociologyEmory University1555 Dickey Dr.Atlanta, GA 30322Vice Provost's Postdoctoral FellowPopulation Studies CenterUniversity of Pennsylvania3718 Locust Walk239 McNeil BuildingPhiladelphia, PA 191014Email: [email protected]: www.abigailasewell.com________________________________This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use ofthe intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privilegedinformation. If the reader of this message is not the intendedrecipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distributionor copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictlyprohibited.If you have received this message in error, please contactthe sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of theoriginal message (including attachments).

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