How much does it cost to arrest a graffiti writer?

Many Sunnyside residents were awoken in the early hours of Monday morning by a low-flying police helicopter.

The helicopter was flying over 42nd and Queens Blvd at 2:00am as police were pursuing three teenagers who were tagging the building above Dunkin’ Donuts.

The police tracked them down and arrested them at 41stand Queens Blvd at 2:30 am. The three—Jeffery Sanchez, Jonathan Aramis and Aileen Mahmoodi- were all charged with criminal mischief; making graffiti; and possession of a graffiti instrument, police said.

According to our records, The NYPD has 6 helicopters. 2 – Bell 412EP’s, 3 – Bell 212’s and 1 – Bell 206.

According to Conklin’s the average hourly flying cost is as follows:

412EP – $1668/hour.
212 – $1439/hour
206 – $516/hour

That’s not counting the officer overtime processing these kids, or the fact that the arresting officers were taken off the street probably for the rest of their tour to do the paperwork, etc. Call me crazy but in the grand scheme of things, we’re talking $1000-$5000 cost for these 3 arrests.

Now you can argue like every other idiot on the internet does these days that ‘they did the crime and should pay the time, expense, etc’. But when you factor in the fact that NYC’s now the weed arrest capital of the US, and star tallying up how much it costs to arrest all these petty crooks (even if no ghetto bird is used) and you’re talking about perhaps millions of dollars, spent largely to keep minorities in jail or with criminal records that will hold them back some more in life. Millions blown on people catching tags and smoking weed – habits that people generally grow out of on their own as they get older. Seems like a huge, huge waste of money to me.

Mad Props to GasAxe for the research on this one.