Two years ago this month, Eric Garner was gang-tackled and smothered by New York City police officers on a Staten Island sidewalk. His death helped to spark a national outcry and a push for better ways of policing the police. Among the reforms sought by the New York City Council are two bills to protect civilians from being harassed and unlawfully searched.
When NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton eventually leaves 1 Police Plaza, he will be remembered for the innovative CompStat program and its data-driven approach to fighting crime.
But critics said it was time for new ideas — and he was fresh out of them.
“He realizes there have to be changes and many of those changes he’s not comfortable with,” said Marq Claxton, director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance, who worked for 20 years in the NYPD.
Ahead of a fall 2016 pilot project that will outfit 1,000 NYPD officers with body cameras, the NYPD today launched an online survey to solicit public feedback on how the technology should be applied.
Following on the heels of passing the Criminal Justice Reform Act, which diverts the prosecution of a number of low-level nonviolent offenses to civil rather than criminal avenues, the City Council will hear a bill on Tuesday that also addresses criminal justice reform, but this time by targeting bad actors within the NYPD.
A hot-button Department of Investigation report released Wednesday contradicts the NYPD’s claim that “broken windows”-type arrests drive down more serious crime.
The rate of summonses and arrests for minor quality-of-life crimes like disorderly conduct, public urination and open-container violations had no real impact in driving down felonies over the past six years, the report found.
An 88-page report released today by the city's independent watchdog that oversees the NYPD found that the department’s controversial “Broken Windows” policing strategy not only is racially discriminatory, but also has no impact on serious crime.
MIDTOWN — Broken windows policing may be broken, according to a blistering new report by the Office of Inspector General for the NYPD.
A six-year analysis by the NYPD IG, which falls under the Department of Investigation, has found there’s no correlation between the number of quality-of-life summonses issued for offenses like public urination and alcohol consumption and the drop in felony crime.
Communities United for Police Reform responds to Commissioner Bill Bratton’s claim that civilians documenting the police are an “epidemic” that escalates police violence against civilians.
Either Bill Bratton is desperate for national attention or is seeking to deflect from corruption investigations and his impotence in addressing systemic failed police accountability, but it could be all of the above.
The City Council today enacted a series of bills that will give police officers the discretion to steer certain low-level broken windows offenses like drinking in public, littering, and public urination to civil court, rather than criminal court.
"Nobody who has littered or made excessive noise... should bear the brunt of the criminal justice system," said Queens Council Member Rory Lancman, a bill sponsor, on Wednesday.
