The New York Police Department's new commissioner must address the agency's dwindling public trust as her tenure begins.
Jessica Tisch became the agency's top official after former commissioner Edward Caban resigned amid federal investigations. Past surveys show high trust in the department but a new survey of heavily policed neighborhoods paints a different picture.
Brett Stoudt, associate director of the Public Science Project, said it found people in such neighborhoods want crime handled differently.
"A significant number of these residents do not desire more investments in policing but instead desire approaches to public safety that invest in a broad set of supports and services, and institutions," Stoudt explained. "The kind that more fundamentally address the root causes of violence."
Other findings show people are fearful of their neighborhood's expanded police presence. Along with this, some said they have experienced physical or sexual violence from police officers. Stoudt noted this kind of policing mostly affects minorities in the city. The New York Civil Liberties Union finds Black people are 20% of the city's population, but were 60% of people police stopped in 2023.
Recommendations to fix the issues include increasing transparency for the department, firing officers who abuse their position for power and stopping the spread of misinformation from the agency.
Ileana Méndez-Peñate, program director for the group Communities United for Police Reform, said other recommendations aim to reduce the department's omnipresent role in some areas.
"The other policy recommendation related to that is the real need to invest in the fundamental needs of New Yorkers," Méndez-Peñate emphasized. "I talked about housing and education but also youth programs and services and quality city infrastructure through security. These are some of the top concerns."
There could be challenges to enacting the survey's solutions. One is the charter revisions passed on Election Day, since one of them gives the department more power. She added another challenge is financing, since the millions of dollars the city spends on the police department do not address the root causes of certain issues.