Responding to the persistence of violent crime and high-profile incidents of retail theft, Philadelphia is on the cusp of becoming the first major American city to pass a widespread ban on ski masks, which legislators there argue have been used by criminals seeking to avoid identification.
The legislation easily passed in the city council last week and is now on the desk of outgoing Mayor Jim Kenney. But there are concerns that the anti-ski mask policy could lead to discrimination, especially against young men of color, while others wonder if the ban will be effective.
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Desperate for solutions
Crime was rising in Philadelphia before the coronavirus pandemic. Then, in 2020, COVID-19 shut down large segments of society, including courts and schools and, as a consequence, caused a nationwide crime spike. Since then, most major cities have seen many types of crime subside, and Philadelphia has broadly been part of that trend.
But city leaders say it is not enough.
In late September, two nights of widespread retail theft — footage of which quickly spread on social media — enforced the sense that the city was succumbing to disorder, regardless of what statistics indicate.
"It is clear that our cities are spiraling out of control, businesses are leaving, people don't feel safe, our police are being targeted, and innocent lives are being lost," a state legislator from a northern Philadelphia suburb recently complained.
Some blame progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner, who critics say is too lenient with criminals and too aggressive with police officers accused of wrongdoing. Others say that a focus on police misconduct has discouraged proactive law enforcement.
Last month, Philadelphia voters elected Cherelle Parker to become the city's next mayor, the first woman to hold that office. A moderate, Parker has vowed to empower police and bring down crime. "You won't be able to go into a store and steal $499 worth of merchandise and just think it's OK," she says.
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‘Common sense and logic’
Philadelphia Councilman Anthony Phillips told Yahoo News that he was walking through the district he represents — a majority Black slice of northeast Philadelphia — when he was approached by an older woman, a parishioner at a local Baptist church.
“Son, I sent you to the city council to get things done,” he says she told him.
Phillips, who was just 33 when he won the seat previously held by mayor-elect Parker, introduced the ski-mask ban. He describes it as a commonsense solution.
“Currently, there's a lot of lawlessness taking place in our city,” Phillips told Yahoo News, arguing that his own constituents deserve to be as safe as residents of wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs. “Residents of the city of Philadelphia have asked for a ski mask ban. Unfortunately, they do not feel safe.”
His legislation, which passed with a 13-2 vote last week and now awaits signature from Kenney, bans the wearing of ski masks in "any school building, recreation center, daycare, park, City-owned building, or on any mode of public transportation." It includes exemptions for protests, artistic performances and religious practices.
The penalty for violating the ski mask ban will be a $250 fine.
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Will it work?
"Outside a narrow range of contexts, people find ski masks inherently menacing, so much so that ski apparel has evolved to keep people warm without fully masking them," says Brandon Del Pozo, a former New York City Police Department precinct commander who later served as the police chief in Burlington, Vt., and is now a criminologist at Brown University.
Much like Phillips, Del Pozo argues that criminals “have taken advantage of COVID to make masking the norm in situations where it serves no purpose other than concealing their identity and scaring other people.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop who, like Philadelphia's Parker, was elected on a law-and-order platform, has also become a masking detractor. "Some of these characters going into stores that are wearing a mask, they're not doing it because they are afraid of the pandemic. They're doing it because they're afraid of the police, and we need to stop allowing them to exploit the safety of the pandemic by wearing masks, committing crimes," Adams said earlier this year.
New York City has not enacted a masking ban.
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Critics remain unconvinced
Civil libertarians are not convinced that there are enough protections in Phillips's new bill to prevent police harassment of young men of color. "Giving police the authority to stop civilians without suspicion of unlawful activity is unconstitutional," said an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
But to Phillips, who is Black, such charges ring false. “Ski masks are connected to crime. It has never been normal to wear ski masks,” he told Yahoo News. “This is not about profiling. This is about common sense and logic.”
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