Nearly half of the 98,000 civil tickets NYPD officers issued over the last fiscal year for things like public urination and open container violations were thrown out by hearing officers, according to data reviewed by Gothamist.
In the year since the NYPD announced it would expand its quality of life enforcement initiative, officials at the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, known as OATH, dismissed roughly 46,000 civil tickets, or 47% of those issued, the data shows.
The vast majority were dismissed due to issues labeled “defective service” and “defective notice of violation.” Those terms can refer to a range of ticket problems, but officials with the city Department of Investigation, OATH and City Council all point to one issue in particular: handwritten tickets.
Unlike other city ticket-writing agencies, the NYPD still writes 100% of its civil tickets by hand.
Marisa Senigo, a spokesperson for the office of trials, said handwritten summonses “will inevitably create a higher likelihood of dismissal due to human errors.” Common mistakes include typos, inaccurate legal codes and illegible handwriting that leads to data entry errors, as well as missing information about how a ticket was delivered, Senigo said.
Tens of thousands of defective tickets add up to a huge waste of public resources at a moment when city officials say they are looking for ways to make the government more efficient and have the NYPD focus on significant crimes, according to government accountability and transparency advocates. They also say it wastes the public money spent on the people who process those tickets, not to mention the time people spend fighting invalid tickets.
An example of a handwritten civil summons issued by an NYPD officer in Manhattan earlier this year.
Paper tickets make public records requests more cumbersome, and make it harder for the public to understand the decisions an agency makes, said Rachael Fauss, a senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany, a nonprofit that advocates for New York government transparency and accountability.
“Generally speaking, handwritten forms need to go,” Fauss said.
Furthermore, critics of the NYPD’s quality of life policing have said a focus on low-level infractions diverts resources away from investments that could improve New Yorkers’ lives. The fact that almost half the tickets are being thrown out just adds to their impression that it’s a waste of everyone’s time.
“These summonses still force New Yorkers to spend time navigating the legal system and appearing at hearings, often over cases that should never have proceeded,” said Amanda Jack, the policy director of criminal law reform at the Legal Aid Society. “A dismissal rate this staggering only underscores how little justification there is for subjecting so many New Yorkers to this process at all,” she said.
The NYPD is working to address technical errors including by retraining officers, said Bradley Weekes, a department spokesperson.
“The summonses noted in this story were dismissed based on technicalities, not on merit or substance. Officers are appropriately identifying unlawful behavior and taking appropriate enforcement measures,” Weekes said in a statement.
In addition to public urination and open container violations, common offenses the tickets charge include unlicensed vending, pedicab violations, and putting construction materials on the street.
‘Big problem’
In a 2020 report, officials from the city’s Department of Investigation urged all city agencies that issue civil summonses — including the NYPD — to migrate from handwritten summonses to an electronic system.
The department noted that illegible handwriting sometimes leads staff members to erroneously enter the name of the person who got the ticket, or the violation type.
“Illegibility of handwritten summonses appears to be the most common recurring cause of difficulty enforcing or collecting on summonses,” the report stated.
The NYPD first agreed to adopt an electronic system, but later said they were not able to, a Department of Investigation spokeperson told Gothamist.
Councilmember Gale Brewer, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Governmental Operations, told Gothamist the handwritten tickets are a “big problem.” She said she’s considering introducing legislation that would require the department to move to an electronic system.
“It seems to me that you should be able to do this electronically,” Brewer said.
In comparison, the Department of Buildings has been moving to an electronic ticket-issuing system and issued 80% of its summonses that way last fiscal year, the agency said.
“This administrative change has helped add consistency in our enforcement procedures and improve accuracy on the violations we issue,” DOB spokesperson David Maggiotto said.
In fiscal year 2026, the Department of Buildings had about 13% of its summonses dismissed, according to the figures from the hearings and trials office.
Fauss, the policy adviser from Reinvent Albany, said the NYPD should be able to fix the problem.
“Technology is not the barrier here — this is basic stuff. It takes a willingness to change, and NYPD needs to work toward eliminating paper and training officers to do their work electronically,” she said.
