Focus on Crime
Focus on Crime
Professional policing reduces crime. It’s easy to prove.
Friends and family who witnessed the turmoil of the 1960s say things are worse today. It’s hard to believe because so many things are improved. Has primary and secondary education improved? I believe so. Has the ability to secure your possessions, your home and your vehicle improved? A city I worked in as a consultant last year had six auto thefts in a reporting period, all stolen with keys left inside the vehicle. Several of these vehicles were recovered after they passed license plate readers. A huge improvement over hot sheets tucked in the visor.
New York City
The Big Apple is rapidly losing ground on crime affecting both the safety of its residents and the legitimate growing fear of crime experienced by city dwellers. Between bail reform, decarceration, police force reform and police defunding, it is clear none of these strategies exist to resolve these issues. Some are directly causing crime to increase.
The city also faces two nearly impossible challenges. The first is Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and the second is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Bragg is preoccupied with charging a victim of blackmail in one case and in another case, a subway hero. Both of these district attorneys are daily violating their oath of office, demoralizing their staff, and unleashing violent criminals by no billing or abandoning cases. Mayor Eric Adams is part of the problem too, rewarding subordinates who undermine the police commissioner and betraying the frontline responders of the NYPD in his words and actions.
Formerly, the safest large city in the world!
New York City is still enjoying the benefits of the Bratton years. Today, the city doesn’t resemble a John Carpenter movie, at least in most places. However, the one thing that happening today that is a recipe for disaster: waiting. Waiting for a new DA, waiting for bail reform, waiting for disbanded units to be reinstated, and with a commissioner with one foot out the door, waiting for fresh leadership in Gracie Mansion and One Police Plaza, is not the optimal choice to enhance public safety. Waiting is not the answer.
If there is courageous leadership within the command staff and the police union, drastic measures exercised in the short term will let the wagon of success crest the hill.
A crazy plan!
· During a specified period, no extra duty will be performed by any NYPD members. These would be moonlighting jobs working events or bars.
· Major city events requiring off-duty cops will be cancelled and all other off duty gigs will be filled in the city by cops from New Jersey and Long Island as well as other mutual aid areas. Block parties, concerts, 5Ks, and any other permitted event will be postponed until order is restored.
· Everyone with a uniform will be on the streets at least three days per week working calls and anti-crime initiatives. Every day (sick, holiday or vacation) off will be a plain-clothes day off, not a uniform day off.
· Cops will arrest every criminal as they chase guns, drugs, and money. During this time, all rookie officers will be trained to and develop several confidential informants in the beats they patrol.
· Analysts will populate a live public dashboard online where citizens and media can follow the cases (also retroactively in the cases of pre-trial release with a new law violation.) Today, each time a prolific offender gets arrested for a new crime, especially violence with victims, the press barks about why this person wasn’t in jail where they belong. Now the media and the public will have the same information at the same time.
· With city jails overflowing, (the right kind of problem to have while dealing with a crime spike,) news of pre-trial releasees victimizing more city residents, criminals who in a sane system should be in jail, ought to jump start reality again.
Law enforcement leaders will blame the oppressive circumstances mentioned earlier plus the exodus of staff and the inability to recruit at a sustainable level. While those factors existed, none of them undermined cops from doing their jobs except for the elimination of the anti-crime units. However, now we have that institutional knowledge in the reinstated ‘Neighborhood Safety Teams.’ I wish them great success.
Nothing impeded New York Police Department officers from doing their jobs other than the genuine concern that should a tragic event occur, there was zero assurance that the department would support them, even if they were clearly in the right. Was there a directive, passed down orally from both middle managers and union reps to officers to avoid high risk self-initiated activities? I won’t be persuaded either way because I don’t care at this point. It doesn’t matter. All I want is to let officers do their jobs.
If there was a season, beginning tomorrow, where the single-minded focus of every officer, was to address street level crime we would see the needle sweep toward safety. Flood Rikers with criminal intake, regardless of the revolving door state policy. Let the system ache from the strain and let all citizens see everything firsthand. Share everything with the public. My plan can’t happen because it is too crazy.
A crazier plan is being placed into practice
Sanity, clearly, is not contagious. New York City Hall staffers have developed a plan for addressing low level offenses without causing the lying thieves to become ‘justice-involved.’ There is a popular current theory, probably a bubble off level, that if we don’t count certain crimes as crimes, there will be a reduction in crime. Channel 5 reports:
“The new crackdown includes giving first-time offenders intervention programs instead of prosecution, de-escalation training for retail employees, establishing neighborhood retail watch groups to share information about a theft in real-time with one another and the police, and installing kiosks in stores to connect would-be thieves with social service programs.”
While this new initiative was not the passion project of Mayor Eric Adams, it was the result of citizen encounters in town hall style meetings and developed by city staff to be signed off by the mayor.
I have a number of NYPD heroes including William Bratton, Bernard Kerik and Kenneth Corey as well as a number of double-dippers I enjoyed working with. I can imagine their emotions as they see a retreat from bringing order to neighborhoods.
As crazy as my proposal is, the foreseeable outcome would be safer streets and fewer lives lost. However, the even crazier option that will go into practice will guarantee the opposite.
Please pray for all the NYPD peace officers!
REFERENCES:
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/adams-unveils-plan-to-tackle-nyc-shoplifting
“Sanity, clearly, is not contagious”
Brilliant writing with this, sir! I wholeheartedly agree with your plan! Last year, I proposed a similar plan in an all staff meeting - while functioning as a Det. Sgt - and was spectacularly shut down. Without any real reason, by the way. Sanity and common sense are truly not contagious.
Spot on, as usual!
As as aside (and to clarify), in my previous piece, I wasn't condemning ALL police consultants; they serve a useful purpose. My issue is with PDs that partner with one-dimensional idealogues.