New York City Police Department
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- For the American 1960's television crime drama, see N.Y.P.D..
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), the largest police department in the United States, has primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City. It is considered to be the first "modern" style police department in the United States; when it was created in the 19th century, it was modeled after London's Metropolitan Police.
One Police Plaza is the headquarters of the NYPD.
According to the department, its mission is to "enforce the laws, preserve the peace, reduce fear, and provide for a safe environment." Primarily, this involves preventing and responding to crime.
The New York City Transit Police and Housing Police were fully integrated into the NYPD in 1995; some new police officers are randomly assigned to the Transit and Housing units.
NYPD members are frequently referred to by the nickname "New York's Finest" (in the same vein as FDNY firefighters are called "New York's Bravest").
The Compstat program, introduced under then-Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Rudolph Guiliani in the 1990s, uses statistics about crime rates and arrests to evaluate police precincts and commands. As with many large metropolitan police forces, accusations of corruption and mismanagement have dogged the NYPD.
The size of the force has fluctuated, depending on crime rates, politics, and available funding. The overall trend, however, shows that the number of sworn officers is decreasing. In June 2004, there were about 40,000 sworn officers plus several thousand support staff; In June 2005, that number dropped to 35,000.
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Organization
The NYPD is headed by the New York City Police Commissioner with the senior sworn officer being titled the Chief of Department. It is divided into 10 bureaus. Each is headed by a Bureau Chief, with the Detective Bureau being headed by the Chief of Detectives.
- Patrol Services
- Detective
- Criminal Justice
- Organized Crime Control
- Transportation
- Support Services
- Housing
- Internal Affairs
- Personnel
- Training
Ranks of the NYPD
There are ten sworn ranks of the New York City Police Department:
- Police Officer
- Sergeant (symbol of rank: 3 chevrons)
- Lieutenant (symbol of rank: 1 gold bar)
- Captain (symbol of rank: 2 gold bars)
- Deputy Inspector (symbol of rank: gold oak leaf)
- Inspector (symbol of rank: gold eagle)
- Deputy Chief (symbol of rank: 1 gold star)
- Assistant Chief (symbol of rank: 2 gold stars)
- Bureau Chief (symbol of rank: 3 gold stars)
- Chief of Department (symbol of rank: 4 gold stars)
Additionally, there is one "rank" that is not a sworn member of the department, but is instead, appointed by the Mayor as the administrative head of the agency.
- Police Commissioner (symbol of rank: 5 gold stars)
Within the rank structure, there are also designations, which are further specifications within a rank that connote differences in duties, experience, and pay, but NOT rank. For example, the title "detective" is NOT a rank within the New York City Police Department - it is a specification. A "detective" has the rank of police officer with the specification of detective specialist, detective first grade (highest), detective second grade, or third grade (lowest - entry level).
Thus, a detective does not outrank a police officer (they are the same rank, but have different roles) and a sergeant outranks a detective. Detectives, specifically detective "investigators" are those members of the Department that generally perform investigatory duties in detective squads in local precincts and specialized units. Detective "investigators" also perform investigatory functions in narcotic operations, vice, and anti-terrorists efforts. The rank of sergeant and above are supervisory officers of the Department.
Common designations of the various ranks are listed below:
- Police Officer: Police Officer - First Grade (five years of service or more) to Fifth Grade (rookie), Detective Specialist, Detective First Grade, Detective Second Grade, Detective Third Grade, Special Assignment
- Sergeant: Supervisor Detective Squad, Special Assignment
- Lieutenant: Commander Detective Squad, Special Assignment
Promotion from police officer to sergeant, sergeant to lieutenant, and lieutenant to captain all occur via a civil service formula that factors: performance on the civil service written examination for that rank, length of service, citations awarded, optional physical fitness test (for extra points). Promotion beyond the rank of captain is discretionary.
Promotion to the designations within the ranks is also discretionary.
Badges in the New York City Police Department are referred to as "shields".
Structure
Police Precincts
The police department is divided into precincts. Each precinct is responsible for safety and law enforcement within a designated geographic area. Police units based in these precincts patrol and respond to emergencies.
For management purposes, police precincts are grouped collectively based on their jurisdiction into Patrol Boroughs. There are eight Patrol Boroughs. They are: Manhattan North, Manhattan South, Brooklyn North, Brooklyn South, Queens North, Queens South, Bronx, and Staten Island.
Transit Police
The NYPD Transit police is a separate branch of the NYPD that patrols and responds to emergencies within the New York City Transportation Network. Their jurisdiction includes the NYC Subways in Manhattan, Bronx, Kings and Queens Counties.
The Transit Police is broken up into Transit Borough Commands covering the public transportation network. They are Transit Borough Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. From there, they are divided into Transit Districts which are based in major transportation hubs in the Subway.
Each Borough is commanded by an Inspector while Transit Districts by Captains.The NYPD Detective Bureau investigates all cimes that occur in Transit. Each borough office has assigned detectives from the Detective Bureau similar to the Precinct Detective Squad.
Housing Bureau
The Housing Bureau is responsible for providing the security and delivery of police services to 420,000 residents, employees and guests of public housing (projects) throughout New York City. They are stationed in Police Service Areas (PSA), which are almost identical to police precincts, with nine PSAs in total located throughout the five boroughs. Officers often do vertical patrols, making sure illegal activity does not take place in the halls, stairways, or the roof.
Auxiliary Police
The NYPD has an unpaid force known as the Auxiliary Police program. It is composed of citizens who volunteer time to help their neighborhoods by providing a uniformed presence.In 1950, the 81st Congress passed the Public Law #920, entitled “The Civil Defense Act of 1950” authorizing a Federal Civil Defense Program. In 1951, the New York State Legislature enacted the “Defense Emergency Act” requiring New York City to recruit, train, and equip volunteer Auxiliary Police, who would then act as a liaison to the NYPD in the event of an emergency or natural disaster.
In 1967, A Mayoral Executive Order closed the Civil Defense Headquarters and placed full responsibility of the Auxiliary Police Program with the NYPD. During the 1960’s when crime was on the rise, uniform Auxiliary Police patrols were an effective means to deter crime.
Auxiliary officers sometimes ride in squad cars (called RMPs for Radio Motor Patrols), but usually patrol on foot. They are equipped with a baton, flashlight, handcuffs, and a radio. If officers see a crime in progress, they report it to Central Dispatch using the radio. Auxiliaries act primarily as the eyes and ears of the police department. Before becoming auxiliaries, recruits go through 53 hours of training. Recently, a directive dated July 14th, 2 weeks after the 7 July 2005 London bombings, stated that the City would institute a citywide transit auxiliary program. This will help reduce crime and fight terrorism in the Transit System. [1]
Highway Patrol
History
Early years
The first law enforcement patrols began in New York (then New Amsterdam) in 1625. The first law enforcment officer was Johann Lampo.
After New York became an English settlement (rather than a Dutch one), constables patrolled the streets and maintained order.
In 1844, the governor of New York State gave the mayor permission to establish a police department. In July 1845, a police force of about 800 men began patrolling the streets. George Matsell was the first Chief of Police. The first Hispanic and African American officers were George Garcia hired in 1896 and Samuel J. Battle hired in 1911 respectively. However until the earlier 1960s when affirmative action was brought into play, the department remained less than 5% of both ethnic groups. The majority of the white officers were and currently are of Irish or Italian descent, and to this day as a result, the NYPD is one of the most heavily Catholic police departments in the world.
Many New Yorkers associate the police department with the green lights that are found outside every station. It is believed that the green light originated with the Rattle Watch patrols who monitored the streets during the Dutch Era. These patrolmen carried lanterns with green glass slides in them, and placed them outside their station houses when they returned.
Modern era
Difficulties
The economic downturn of the 1970s led to some extremely difficult times for the city. The Bronx, in particular, was plagued by arson, and an atmosphere of lawlessness permeated the city. In addition, there was a hiring freeze on all city departments, including the NYPD, from 1976 to 1980.
This was followed by the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s that caused the city's homicide rate to soar to an all-time high. Petty thefts associated with drug addiction were also increasingly common.
On September 11, 2001, 23 NYPD officers were killed when the World Trade Center collapsed due to terrorist attacks. That was more lives lost than in any other year in the NYPD's history.
Historically speaking, the NYPD is rumored to be one of the most corrupt police departments in America for it is rumored that several of the officers are prone to bribery and aiding several criminal organizations.
Successes
In recent years, the NYPD has overseen a great reduction in the amount of crime in the city. While there are many theories on why the city's and the nation's crime rate has dropped so substantially (see legalized abortion and crime effect and crime prevention through environmental design for examples of alternate theories) many credit the NYPD's CompStat (computerized database of crime statistics) approach. COMPSTAT assists the department in understanding where most crimes occur, which allows them to dedicate extra resources to that area. Some also credit a dramatic change in approach to preventing crime begun by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the 1990s. Giuliani used the department to crack down on minor "quality of life" crimes such as turnstile jumping, squeegee men, panhandling, etc. He believed that a crackdown on these types of crime would give the police an opportunity to search more suspects, thereby taking guns and drugs off the street and contribute to the public perception that New York City was a lawful environment where crime was not tolerated. Supporters of this approach say that the reduced crime rate shows his approach to be correct, however others point to the nationwide reduction in crime over the same time period as evidence that demographic changes in the United States caused crime rates to drop, not NYPD specific approaches like COMPSTAT.
Scandals and corruption
Throughout its history, the NYPD has occasionally been tainted by corruption. In 1970, legendary police officer Frank Serpico broke the Blue Wall of Silence and, along with other officers, testified before the Knapp Commission about the corruption he witnessed in the department. The Commission's findings led to sweeping changes within the department.
In 1993, Mayor David Dinkins appointed the Mollen Commission, chaired by Milton Mollen, to investigate corruption in the department. The commission found that "Today's corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. Corruption was, in its essence, consensual. Today's corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality."
Corruption in the department is investigated by the Internal Affairs Bureau.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, corruption seemed to be less of a public concern than several instances of unnecessary or illegal use of force. Many of these incidents involved black victims, which led to allegations of racism within the department.
On August 9, 1997, police officers in Brooklyn brutalized Abner Louima with a plunger in a precinct bathroom. Officer Justin Volpe, the apparent leader of the attack, pled guilty and received a sentence of 30 years.
On February 4, 1999, the City Wide Anti-Crime Unit "Street Crime" shot Amadou Bailo Diallo, an unarmed man, 19 times in the lobby of an apartment building. The shooting stemmed from a misunderstanding in which officers believed Diallo was reaching for a weapon (he was merely reaching for his wallet) while a member of the unit tripped and appeared to be shot as he fell down the stairs. As a result, the four officers involved in the shooting were acquitted of wrongdoing on February 25, 2000.
On March 16, 2000, undercover narcotics detectives shot Patrick Dorisman to death during a scuffle on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. The detectives had approached Dorisman, an unarmed security guard, and asked to purchase drugs. He told the undercover officer that he did not sell drugs, but the persistance of the officer asking again, enraged him and a fight ensued, and he was killed with one shot by the officer in self-defense.
On January 24, 2004, police in Bedford-Stuyvesant shot to death Timothy Stansbury, a 19-year-old black man whom they encountered on the roof of a housing project building. Stansbury was unarmed, and apparently startled Richard Neri, the officer who shot him.
Affiliations
The department is affiliated with the New York City Police Museum. The department also runs a Summer Youth Police academy to provide positive interaction with police officers and to educate young people about the challenges and responsibility of police work.
Fictional portrayals
The NYPD is behind perhaps only cowboys and gangsters in terms of public fascination, as measured by movie and television treatments. Over the years, countless fictional or fictionalized portrayals of the department have emerged into popular culture.
See also
- NYPD Blue, a television program
- Law and Order, a television program
- Third Watch, a television program
- Kojak, a television program
- Barney Miller, a television program
- CSI: New York, a television program
- 911
- Casualties of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks: City of New York
- Amadou Diallo
- Abner_Louima
- NYPD Highway Patrol
External links
- Official NYPD page
- New York City Police Dept. Radio Transmissions on September 11,2001
- An NYPD Gripe
- Auxiliary Police Benevolent Association
