NYPD to disband anti-crime unit

[HCM]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...PCops0bcLzM5QM

Black Leaders Call on NYPD to Bring Back Anti-Crime Unit as Shootings Spike

[Chemsoldier]

How do you think the large decline in crime happened ?

Broken windows theory only takes you so far. At some point you need to proactively go after those doing the violence.

Brass at the political appointee level misusing anti crime teams doesn't mean they don't still have value as NYC's recent spike in shootings demonstrates.

If a military unit had sniper observer teams dedicated to hunting IED emplacers and a Col or Gen re-tasked them to observing U.S. Patrols looking for and reporting uniform violations you would A) piss off the soldiers on patrols and B) IEDs would spike. None of that detracts from the value of having sniper/observer teams hunting IED emplacers but do you think that Col or Gen is going to take the blame for the spike in IEDs ?

What law/strategy/effects were combined with anti-crime that was key in the drop in crime? After all, NYPD had anti-crime for decades of climbing crime, correct?

I am NOT arguing against anti-crime, just looking for the precise mechanisms that made them effective. What took them from "made a lot of arrests" which I am assuming anti-crime made in the 60s and 70s, to "reduced crime dramatically" in the 90s? I am all for bringing them back, I just want to bring them AND get the positive effects they were having before.

Were there different laws, different prosecution and trial techniques, improved targeting or tactics by anti-crime officers? What changed?

[HCM]

What law/strategy/effects were combined with anti-crime that was key in the drop in crime? After all, NYPD had anti-crime for decades of climbing crime, correct?

I am NOT arguing against anti-crime, just looking for the precise mechanisms that made them effective. What took them from "made a lot of arrests" which I am assuming anti-crime made in the 60s and 70s, to "reduced crime dramatically" in the 90s? I am all for bringing them back, I just want to bring them AND get the positive effects they were having before.

Were there different laws, different prosecution and trial techniques, improved targeting or tactics by anti-crime officers? What changed?

What changed was support from both the PD and city hall for being proactive, improved targeting, and consequences post arrest including followtheough by prosecutors with a mandate to make cases rather than reject as many as possible. Competent and proactive prosecutors are the difference between effective action and a revolving door involving g "lots of arrests."

Part of that effort was the federal govt stepping in on felon in possession cases via project exile. It targeted repeat felon / gun offenders for federal charges including having them do time as far away from their home turf as possible. These are the core of offenders doing multiple violent crimes. Even if "no stiching" culture let's them literally get away with murder taking them off the board for 5 or 15 years via federal gun charges makes a dent. Most of those cases were local anti crime type arrested "adopted" as federal cases.

The offenders anti crime targets know how to duck uniformed officers in marked units.

[WobblyPossum]

I wasn’t sure if I should start a new thread for this, but the NY State Senate is currently considering a bill to prohibit Peace Officers within NYS from carrying firearms in the course of their duties. You can read the text here. The idea that the far left would move towards disarming our police has been discussed here several times before and I believe it is a likely goal of theirs. I think this bill will fail, for now, because they pushed too hard, too quickly. Once they’ve completely killed off all proactive policing and the police departments become entirely reactive like the fire departments, this idea might gain some more traction.

BBI, feel free to break this off into its own thread if you don’t think it’s appropriate for this thread.

[TGS]

[Glenn E. Meyer]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/n...gtype=Homepage

Arrest numbers have plummeted even as shootings have spiraled up, and the elected officials contend that rank-and-file police officers are staging a work slowdown in response to protests over police brutality and systemic racism that erupted after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But police officials say they believe that their inability to curb the shootings stems from the need to shift police resources to the protests, as well as a hostile political climate that has made officers reluctant to carry out arrests because of what they see as unfair scrutiny of their conduct.

FYI

[Hambo]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...PCops0bcLzM5QM

Black Leaders Call on NYPD to Bring Back Anti-Crime Unit as Shootings Spike

Do you want us to enforce the law, or not enforce the law?

[farscott]

Do you want us to enforce the law, or not enforce the law?

AKA proactive policing works by catching too many crooks we rather not catch because it looks bad to catch so many crooks before they shoot someone or more than one someone.

[Joe S]

What changed was support from both the PD and city hall for being proactive, improved targeting, and consequences post arrest including followtheough by prosecutors with a mandate to make cases rather than reject as many as possible. Competent and proactive prosecutors are the difference between effective action and a revolving door involving g "lots of arrests."

Part of that effort was the federal govt stepping in on felon in possession cases via project exile. It targeted repeat felon / gun offenders for federal charges including having them do time as far away from their home turf as possible. These are the core of offenders doing multiple violent crimes. Even if "no stiching" culture let's them literally get away with murder taking them off the board for 5 or 15 years via federal gun charges makes a dent. Most of those cases were local anti crime type arrested "adopted" as federal cases.

The offenders anti crime targets know how to duck uniformed officers in marked units.

I think the prosecuting makes a huge difference. I would also point to demographic shifts (increase in money city wide pushes lower income folks into concentrated neighborhoods or out of the city). I think some of it was just more cops out on the streets more, making more arrests. Some of it was probably a generation of certain ethnicities raised by parents who were very aware/had participated in/had lived through the Civil Rights Movement, and were more invested in broader society.

FWIW, I don't know a ton about the Anti-Crime Unit. As just a resident, I know younger men of color, especially in certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx, felt unfairly targeted and harassed by them. They may have looked a certain way, racially, or in terms of dress, but would be followed, stopped, frisked, and occasionally roughed up/manhandled without cause. I'm certainly not saying that happened all the time, or even close to the majority of the time. But I know guys, clean, family oriented, hard working, religious guys, who had this happen to them. And that engendered a lot of anger from good young men.

[blues]

FWIW, I don't know a ton about the Anti-Crime Unit. As just a resident, I know younger men of color, especially in certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the Bronx, felt unfairly targeted and harassed by them. They may have looked a certain way, racially, or in terms of dress, but would be followed, stopped, frisked, and occasionally roughed up/manhandled without cause. I'm certainly not saying that happened all the time, or even close to the majority of the time. But I know guys, clean, family oriented, hard working, religious guys, who had this happen to them. And that engendered a lot of anger from good young men.

I can speak from personal experience as a white guy who "looked the part", (and sometimes was the part), in the late 60's, early 70's in NYC.

Driving downtown on one of the avenues in Midtown my buddy and I were forced over to the curb in not quite a pit maneuver, but fairly abrupt fashion.

The cops pulled us out of the vehicle and without so much as a by your leave decided to search the vehicle for drugs. None were found. I was enraged that we were stopped in such unceremonious fashion, and was pissed off enough to walk over to a couple of uniforms and ask them if the guys were cops as we saw no ID. They said they were, and I said how do you know, they showed us nothing, and they said simply "Cops know their brothers". And that was that.

I was more than a little angry and felt hurt that I was "profiled" without cause...(the term was not in common use then). I simply had the long hair and scruffy look.

A few years later...I was taking the NYPD test, followed by beginning a career in federal L.E.

I never forgot what it felt like though...despite profiling many folks myself during my career, based upon any number of attributes that might be "tells".

Effective law enforcement is going to leave some ruffled feathers. It would have gone a long way, at the time of the incident I recounted, had the officers offered an apology or some explanation after the fact. But they were indifferent to our "feelings" and left as quickly as they had descended upon us. I tried not to be "that guy" if I didn't have to be.