Locked into NYC neighborhoods?

A new study from Columbia University shows that the majority of people from New York City who wind up in prison come from a disproportionately small number of neighborhoods. For example, the area covered by Brooklyn’s Community Board 16–which includes Brownsville and Ocean Hill–comprises only 3.5 percent of the borough’s population, but it accounts for 8.5 percent of Brooklyn’s prison population. “Prison populations are highly concentrated in neighborhood areas, while crime is dispersed across the city,” said architect Laura Kurgan, a professor who runs Columbia’s Spatial Information Design Lab and was one of the study’s leaders. The study seeks to impact policy making so that money spent on incarceration is instead spent on addressing poverty and building affordable housing. more [Metro]