One of the hallmarks of American civilization is the premium placed on the individual. A high value is placed on human life and much is done in the society to preserve life. Police officers are not just about the business of law enforcement but are there to protect human life.
The police officer is called upon in certain circumstances to exercise discretion, to use judgment in the carrying out of his duty. That is why urban police departments ensure that police officers undergo rigorous training before they get their stripes to interact with the public. The New York Police Department has a fairly rigorous training program but once the rookie officer hits the streets, the culture of the department takes over. At Present, the educational requirements to become an NYPD officer need to be revisited.
When Lee Brown rode into town from Texas to take up the reins as Commissioner of the New York Police Department, Brown pushed the concept of community policing. NYPD would forge closer links between the police and the community. At the time when David Dinkins took office in 1989, New York City was in the throes of a crack epidemic. Murders, rape, robbery and burglaries were climbing annually exponentially.
This criminal immiseration did not begin with David Dinkins but had its genesis from the late 1960s and was exacerbated by the City’s financial crisis of the 1970s when the City tottered on the brink of bankruptcy and thousands of teachers, firemen, police officers and civil servants were terminated. During the 1970s and 1980s under the Koch administration racial tensions were heightened and incidents in Bensonhurst and in Howard Beach threatened racial disorder.
Dinkins was elected in 1989 to cool the racial temperature but the riot in Crown Heights convinced the powers that be that Dinkins was expendable. In rode Rudy Giuliani with a different perspective on community policing. Giuliani turned to William Bratton and the police command opted for zero tolerance. Rudy Giuliani was not interested in racial harmony but functioned like the new sheriff in town with the task to tame the wild west.
During the Giuliani years, the City experienced a marvelous conjuncture, an economic expansion and a marked reduction in crime. The crack epidemic had peaked and a new generation of black youths spurned hard drugs and opted for “blunts”.
The crime reduction was national but much steeper in New York City and crime reductions have continued into the present year. The City had 2,262 murders in 1990 and 335 in 2013. Crime continues to decline in the categories of rape, robbery, murder, etc. In homicides for this year thus far there have been 161 homicides in contrast to 173 for the same period last year. Somewhat disturbing is the rise in shootings particularly in the Bronx and in Brooklyn. But New York City’s record in the decline of crime is a remarkable accomplishment.
Under Michael Bloomberg, crime continued to decline. Tensions between the police and the community rose as NYPD, under Commissioner Ray Kelly, went overboard with stop and frisk. The New York Civil Liberties Union’s study of stop and frisk in 2011 identified over 685,000 stops, the vast majority amounting to harassment particularly of black residents. In the period 2006 to 2009, the Civilian Complaint Review Board was bombarded with over 7,000 complaints. In recent years, the complaints have hovered around 5,000.
In his campaign for Mayor, De Blasio made it clear that he would improve police/community relations by reducing stop and frisk and reinstate community policing. The Eric Garner tragedy illustrates that there are elements in NYPD that are contemptuous of life particularly black life. The Garner incident is the most tragic but there are other incidents in recent weeks that provide further evidence that rogue cops intent on abusing citizens is not a rarity in New York City Police Department.
Bratton is a zealot for “broken windows” and zero tolerance. The question is as presently constituted with the limited educational requirements to become a police officer it does not appear that zealous law enforcement can co-exist with the constitutional protection of citizen rights. Can the contradiction be reconciled?
In the waning years of the Koch administration as racial tensions mounted, the first black Police Commissioner, Ben Ward, set new requirements to become a police officer in NYPD – sixty college credits or two years of military service with a GED. Those educational requirements were set decades ago and Mayor De Blasio should revisit that low educational bar. A bachelor’s degree should be a pre-requisite for becoming a NYPD recruit and graduate degrees required of officers in supervisory positions.
New York is a new city that is ill-served by poorly educated cops who lack the verbal skills and the judgment to function as professionals. New educational standards would eliminate the ‘red neck’ syndrome in NYPD and ensure that when a citizen cries “I cannot breathe”, there is a humane response.
