Between these two arrest types is the Desk Appearance Ticket (DAT) which can be issued for misdemeanor crimes, violation offenses, and some E-felonies. In these instances, a person is brought to a precinct location, fingerprinted and photographed and, if found eligible, subsequently released on their own recognizance with a ticket with an appearance date for the Criminal Court arraignment.

Eligibility for either a Summons or DAT is based on statute and written police guidelines.

Throughout its history the New York City Criminal Justice Agency, Inc. (CJA) has been documenting trends in the issuance of Desk Appearance Tickets through routine and special topic reports. These reports have shown how the volume, composition and arraignment appearance rates have fluctuated over time. Many factors account for these variations, most prominently differences across City administrations in approaches to criminal justice issues, and differences in police and prosecution policies and practices.

A CJA study examined DATs through calendar year 2012. This study predated dramatic changes which were about to occur regarding the arrest and prosecution of low-level marijuana charges, part of a larger context of challenges and changes in stop-question-frisk practices in New York City. It also predated New York State’s legislation raising the age of adult criminal responsibility. The current report picks up the DAT story in subsequent years—2013 through 2019. This period serves as a prelude to New York’s Bail Reform Law, effective as of January 1, 2020, which is another major milestone which will alter the DAT landscape.

The first section of this study report examines citywide patterns in the years from 2013 through 2019. The volume of prosecuted DATs has seen dramatic declines in the most recent years. Among the drivers of this are changes in policing policies with regard to stop-question-frisk, police and District Attorney policies with respect to arrest and prosecution for low-level marijuana possession and transit fare-evasion charges, and legislation which has raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to18. The impact of these factors on the population of prosecuted DATs is explored, including changes in defendant characteristics and charge composition. In addition to demographic factors, another element examined over time is the extent and type of collection of contact information, critical for providing court appearance notification.

The first step in court processing is bringing cases to the Criminal Court arraignment and the decrease in prosecuted arrest volume has been accompanied by an overall decline in arrest-to-arraignment time. However, the decline in time is not commensurate with the volume drop, suggesting that there are factors other than just volume which can impact how long it may take to complete all necessary pre-arraignment materials.

Citywide arraignment appearance and failure-to-appear (FTA) rates, along with adjudicated outcomes at- and post-arraignment are examined, as are sentencing patterns for convictions. How these aspects of court processing and outcomes differ among crime categories and charges are explored

The citywide data analyzed in the first section of this report is a compendium of the operation of the criminal legal system in each of the City’s five boroughs, and each borough has distinctive characteristics. These differences manifest themselves in a variety of ways including in the characteristic of prosecuted DAT arrests and arrestees, court processing, case outcomes and sentencing patterns. The second section of the report compares these characteristics among the boroughs across time.

The findings of this study have a number of implications for adapting to the DAT requirements under the new bail reform law and this is explored in the final report section. The new law will increase DAT volume, and its impact likely will disproportionately affect prosecuted arrests in some crime categories and for charges with high volumes and high failure-to-appear rates. Arrest-to-arraignment times will need to be dramatically shortened from those found in most boroughs and raises the specter of increases in arraignment continuances and changes in ultimate case outcomes, especially dismissals which are more common in post-arraignment dispositions. New notification requirements will require police to collect contact information and potentially increase CJA’s expanding role in encouraging court attendance and providing enhanced outreach services. These and other issues are explored in the concluding section of the report.