NYPD: Structure, Mission, and Community Policing

Introduction: The NYPD as a Model Police Department

Police departments are professional organizations comprised of men and women who are empowered by society to serve as guardians of the public well-being. Organizations of professionals are characterized by extensive and continuing professional training, shared understanding of and commitment to the values of the profession, and the desire to improve their communities. This paper discusses a city police department that has demonstrated great success over the years — the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

Founded in 1845, the NYPD is the biggest municipal police force in the world, the oldest in the United States, and the model on which other city departments have patterned themselves (Lardner and Reppetto, 2000). From a population of about 33,000 in 1790, New York City rapidly became a city of nearly 400,000 by 1845. The old constable system, which had policed New York since the days of the Dutch, was unprepared for a new set of policing problems, including growing slums, rising crime, and frequent rioting. The need for a police force based on the English paramilitary organization — with uniforms and a chain of command — was met by the development of a municipal police force in 1845 with an initial complement of 900 men. Police officers served one- to two-year appointments and often worked directly for politicians. George W. Matsell, a bookseller, was named the first chief of police. The early years of the department were a period of challenge in bringing public order, characterized by dissension, division, corruption, and reform.

Theodore Roosevelt, an honest leader, first brought reform to the New York City Police Commission in 1895, setting the standard for today's NYPD (Lardner and Reppetto, 2000). During his two-year appointment as president of the Police Commission, Roosevelt recruited more than 600 men solely on the basis of physical and mental qualifications, rather than political affiliation. Roosevelt also opened admission to the department to ethnic minorities and hired the first women.

According to Lardner and Reppetto (2000, p. 142): "Today, the NYPD is one of the largest municipal police departments in the United States, covering the city's five boroughs — Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island — or roughly 320 square miles. With an annual budget of $2.4 billion, there are over 39,000 uniformed officers of all ranks and approximately 9,000 civilians, which now includes the city's traffic enforcement agents. Thirty-nine percent of all uniformed members of the service are women and minorities, a number that has steadily increased in the last decade."

Mission and Objectives

According to the NYPD (2004), the department's mission is to "enhance the quality of life in our city by working in partnership with the community and in accordance with constitutional rights to enforce the laws, preserve the peace, reduce fear, and provide for a safe environment."

The department's main goals are to collaborate with the community to:

Protect the lives and property of fellow citizens and impartially enforce the law; fight crime both by preventing it and by aggressively pursuing violators of the law; maintain a higher standard of integrity than is generally expected of others, because so much is expected of us; and value human life, respect the dignity of each individual, and render services with courtesy and civility.

Administrative Structure

The Police Commissioner is the leader of the NYPD, serving a five-year term and reporting directly to the Mayor (NYPD, 2004). The next two top officials are the First Deputy Commissioner, who is a civilian, and the Chief of Department, the highest-ranking uniformed member of the service. The NYPD's organizational structure includes nine major bureaus: the Patrol Services Bureau, Detective Bureau, Organized Crime Control Bureau, Transportation Bureau, Criminal Justice Bureau, Internal Affairs Bureau, Personnel Bureau, and Support Services Bureau. Under the Patrol Services Bureau, New York City's five boroughs are divided into eight Patrol Borough Commands, which are further subdivided into seventy-six precincts. Twelve Transit Districts and nine Housing Police Service Areas patrol subways and large housing complexes.

In 1994, the NYPD changed its overall tactics in an effort to engage in a "department-wide, full-scale, strategic attack on crime and quality-of-life issues in New York City" (NYPD, 2004). As a result, the city became safer than it had been in thirty years and earned recognition as the safest large city in the United States, according to FBI statistics at the time. This historic crime reduction resulted from innovative management changes, including the implementation of a system to hold senior managers accountable. The modern NYPD is equipped with the tools needed to better analyze crime trends.

According to NYPD (2004): "New York City and the NYPD remain committed to building on current successes through the creation of additional strategic policing initiatives designed for the 21st century."

Conclusion

In summary, the NYPD sends professional, innovative, self-disciplined, and self-motivated officers directly into the community. The department envisions the empowerment of patrol officers to take independent action to solve problems, develop partnerships with the community, and improve the social environment of the neighborhoods they serve. The organization is structured, managed, and operated in a manner that supports the efforts of neighborhood patrol officers and encourages a cooperative approach to solving problems.

Bibliography

Kelling, G. (Autumn 1995). How to run a police department. City Journal, 5(4).

Lardner, James, and Thomas Reppetto. (2000). NYPD: A City and Its Police. New York: Henry Holt.

Livingston, Debra. (1997). Police discretion and the quality of life in public places: Courts, communities, and the new policing. Columbia Law Review, 97(3), 551–672.

New York City Police Department (NYPD). (2004). Retrieved from http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/home.html.

Tos, D. (January 2000). A Fortune 500 police department. Cultural Diversity Magazine.