Freeing People & Police

Apart from the cost in liberty to the accused, why waste police time and effort detaining petty offenders while they wait for a hearing? New York City police now agree that it makes far more sense simply to give the accused a summons ordering him to appear in court later. Evidence is the Manhattan Summons Project, a pioneering experiment by the Vera Foundation, which is already noted for getting pretrial defendants released on their own recognizance without bail (TIME, July 12, 1964). The summons project is a simple interview system run mostly by law students. For example, a young woman garment worker and mother of three was recently arrested for shoplifting a $10 dress at Gimbels. Normally, Mrs. S. would have been searched, grilled, and perhaps held for days in Manhattan's dreary House of Detention for Women. Instead, a Vera staffer spent 15 minutes checking her New York roots --job, family, residence--and her lack of any prior record. On the staffer's recommendation, the desk lieutenant issued a summons, and Mrs. S. was out of the station house in 90 minutes. Five days later, she appeared in court and eventually received a 30-day suspended sentence. In the past 16 months, Vera staffers have interviewed 817 arrested persons at three precinct station houses, recommended summonses for 533 and won summonses for 511--only twelve of whom (or roughly 2%) failed to appear in court. In one shoplifting case alone, the system saves up to nine hours of police time.

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