Abating nuisances

Back in the 1970s New York City had a problem in Times Square, which had become the capital of the sex industry in the city. So, it passed a nuisance abatement law which gave it the power to shut down places that were being used for illegal purposes. Its use has grown since then; there are about 1,000 cases a year, half of which claim that residences are nuisances, largely because of drugs. 

One problem with the way the law is administered is that three-quarters of the cases begin with secret court orders that lock residents out until the case is resolved. The police need a judge’s signoff, but residents aren’t notified and thus have no chance to tell their side of the story until they’ve already been locked out for days. And because these are civil actions, residents also have no right to an attorney. To make matters even worse, residents can be permanently barred from their homes without being convicted or even charged with a crime.

It seems that in most of the cases minorities pay the price. In a survey by ProPublica nine of 10 homes subjected to such actions were in minority communities and only five of the 297 people who were barred from homes were white.