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Commentary

A Police Peace Dividend?

by Eli B. Silverman

"The War on Crime is Won, So Let's Stop Hiring Cops," So reads the title of a June 7 New York Observer article by Nicholas Von Hoffman. Nowhere is this view more rapidly gaining adherents than in New York City. In fact, a September 8 Citizens Union-NYU forum prominently featured the financial and social benefits of redirected police spending.

It may make sense to shift public spending, but not before we critically question unstated assumptions that prop up this reasoning. The first holds that since crime is dramatically down in New York for the last several years, the NYPD (which must be credited for a substantial portion of the drop) can be reduced without crime creeping back up.

Former Commissioner William Bratton, (at the Citizens Union forum, for example) persuasively argued for a reduction of 5000 officers. Not only did his assertion go unchallenged, no one mentioned that homicides are now on the upswing in New York City. Furthermore, homicides are often a bellwether for other serious crimes such as aggravated assault, robbery and burglary. The current homicide increase may be an anomaly. Yet as we approach the end of this year with a projected 675 homicides (compared to 632 in 1998), can we assume that crime will continue to decline with a smaller police force?

The second unexamined assumption is that a smaller force will inescapably reduce police abuse and misconduct, particularly of the Diallo kind, thus reducing citizen complaints.

Both propositions fail to recognize that the key issue in policing is not the size of the force but its management, organization and strategic and tactical deployment. A reduced NYPD can be effective only if it is based on the impulses that have fueled the NYPD's great success in the last five years. These are:

  • Geographic decentralization. Precinct and borough commands were provided resources that formerly were the exclusive province of headquarters. For example, precinct commanders were authorized to use their anti-crime units to perform decoy operations (a function that had previously been left to the citywide Street Crime Unit). The new arrangements replaced cumbersome reporting systems that hampered the precincts' ability to respond to and anticipate problems.
  • Precinct autonomy. Beginning in 1994, the department has actively pursued its long sought goal of providing precinct commanders greater control over their own personnel. The precinct became the key delivery level for tactical deployment and strategies. Precincts are held accountable for performance at headquarters' innovative crime strategy meetings (compstat).
  • Decision making shift. The reforms moved the organization away from headquarters' serving as the department's nerve center whereby operational police tactics were solely conceived and disseminated on a "citywide basis," often with very little input from field commands. The Department realized that standardized, citywide crime fighting decisions were not as effective as strategies tailored for particular communities. Like most citizens who hold Congress in low esteem but highly value their own Representative, many New Yorkers have the same attitude toward the NYPD: they resent the institution but seek more contact with their own beat officer.

Since early 1996, however, these changes have been blunted. The greatest buildup in personnel has occurred in units that: a) do not report to the precinct commander and; b) are directed either by headquarters or the boroughs. The large growth of borough narcotics officers is symptomatic of this expansion of specialized units.

Then there is the specialized Street Crime Unit (SCU) involved in the Diallo tragedy. The tripling in size of the SCU in 1997 made it difficult to carefully screen and train new members. This rapid, less selective, expansion of the SCU and other specialized units drains precincts that are still held accountable for crime reduction but with diminished resources. In addition, specialized units often develop their own distinct culture and require close supervision.

As the number of precinct patrol and community police officers steadily shrinks and daily police-citizen interaction diminishes, police response time to crimes in progress invariably increases. Yet the public is yearning for more interaction with the local beat officers, a type of contact which frequently spurs community organizations to reclaim and maintain their neighborhoods.

If these reform dimensions are attended to, citizen complaints will decline while police effectiveness and public satisfaction increase. Only then should we revisit the appropriate size of the NYPD.

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Eli B. Silverman is Professor of Police Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999.

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