New York City, one of the world's premier urban centers, is also home to the world's most famous and storied municipal law enforcement service: the NYPD. Policing in New York is as old as the city itself, although much has changed since the first Dutch rattle watch patrolled streets in the 1620s. Technological improvements, advancing professional standards, and historical moments like the 1898 consolidation of New York City and the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, have each profoundly changed the way New York City police officers do their jobs. Still, as New York City Police emphasizes, certain elements of the job remain true through the decades and centuries. Being a police officer in New York City has always involved a certain amount of danger, sacrifice, and public coordination.
"A lively, entertaining and well-researched portrait of a zealous reformer during the historic crusade that successfully launched his career in government."--Booklist COMMISSIONER ROOSEVELT: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt and the New York City Police, 1895 - 1897 When Theodore Roosevelt took office as New York's police commissioner in 1895, the Metropolitan Police force was barely more than a confederation of thugs and petty criminals whose chief activity was to extort protection money from local merchants. The thirty-seven-year-old Roosevelt rode roughshod over the corrupt bosses and power brokers and transformed the police into one of the first modern law enforcement agencies in the world. Combining the best elements of biography and social history, Commissioner Roosevelt reveals a fascinating episode from the life of one of America's most colorful cities, and one of her most charismatic leaders.
Nineteenth-century New York City was one of the most magnificent cities in the world, but also one of the most deadly. Without any real law enforcement for almost 200 years, the city was a lawless place where the crime rate was triple what it is today and the murder rate was five or six times as high. The staggering amount of crime threatened to topple a city that was experiencing meteoric growth and striving to become one of the most spectacular in America. For the first time, award-winning historian Bruce Chadwick examines how rampant violence led to the founding of the first professional police force in New York City. Chadwick brings readers into the bloody and violent city, where race relations and an influx of immigrants boiled over into riots, street gangs roved through town with abandon, and thousands of bars, prostitutes, and gambling emporiums clogged the streets. The drive to establish law and order and protect the city involved some of New York’s biggest personalities, including mayor Fernando Wood, police chief Fred Tallmadge, and journalist Walt Whitman. Law and Disorder is a must read for fans of New York history and those interested in how the first police force, untrained and untested, battled to maintain law and order.
Studying the flagship New York City Police Department is critical to understanding policing and democratic society. An examination of the department by experts who have been studying it for years, The New York City Police Department: The Impact of Its Policies and Practices provides a frank and open discussion about the NYPD from an elite group of scholars with varying viewpoints and concerns. The authors in this book are uniquely qualified to discuss and analyze the intricacies of policies and their impact. Researchers working the streets of Brooklyn expose stop-and-frisk policies. An expert academic covers marijuana arrest policies and their implications on citizens. The impact of the NYPD’s development of innovative technology is demonstrated by a recently retired captain who worked on developing the department’s real-time crime center. Presenting the insight of these and other experts, the book explores critical questions such as: How are victims of crime faring in the NYPD’s performance management system? Does the NYPD manipulate crime reports to make them appear better? How does the NYPD handle mass demonstrations? How does the community view the NYPD? How can an individual start a grassroots movement to influence policy and practices? The book explores hiring, firing, and retention; analyzes crime-fighting strategies; discusses the drop in homicide rate in recent years; and reviews legal concerns and the response to public demonstrations such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. The final chapter evaluates implications of the policies the NYPD follows and analyzes how it affects policing worldwide. A scintillating exposé on police culture and resistance to change, the book is destined to encourage enhanced social discourse on the topic for years to come.
Drugs, bribes, falsifying evidence, unjustified force and kickbacks: there are many opportunities for cops to act like criminals. Jammed Up is the definitive study of the nature and causes of police misconduct. While police departments are notoriously protective of their own—especially personnel and disciplinary information—Michael White and Robert Kane gained unprecedented, complete access to the confidential files of NYPD officers who committed serious offenses, examining the cases of more than 1,500 NYPD officers over a twenty year period that includes a fairly complete cycle of scandal and reform, in the largest, most visible police department in the United States. They explore both the factors that predict officer misconduct, and the police department’s responses to that misconduct, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues. The conclusions they draw are important not just for what they can tell us about the NYPD but for how we are to understand the very nature of police misconduct. ACTUAL MISCONDUCT CASES »» An off-duty officer driving his private vehicle stops at a convenience store on Long Island, after having just worked a 10 hour shift in Brooklyn, to steal a six pack of beer at gun point. Is this police misconduct? »» A police officer is disciplined no less than six times in three years for failing to comply with administrative standards and is finally dismissed from employment for losing his NYPD shield (badge). Is this police misconduct? »» An officer was fired for abusing his sick time, but then further investigation showed that the officer was found not guilty in a criminal trial during which he was accused of using his position as a police officer to protect drug and prostitution enterprises. Which is the example of police misconduct?
In fifty years of prosecuting and defending criminal cases in New York City and elsewhere,Michael F. Armstrong has often dealt with cops. For a single two-year span, as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, he was charged with investigating them. Based on Armstrong's vivid recollections of this watershed moment in law enforcement accountability—prompted by the New York Times's report on whistleblower cop Frank Serpico—They Wished They Were Honest recreates the dramatic struggles and significance of the Commission and explores the factors that led to its success and the restoration of the NYPD's public image. Serpico's charges against the NYPD encouraged Mayor John Lindsay to appoint prominent attorney Whitman Knapp to chair a Citizen's Commission on police graft. Overcoming a number of organizational, budgetary, and political hurdles, Chief Counsel Armstrong cobbled together an investigative group of a half-dozen lawyers and a dozen agents. Just when funding was about to run out, the "blue wall of silence" collapsed. A flamboyant "Madame," a corrupt lawyer, and a weasely informant led to a "super thief" cop, who was trapped and "turned" by the Commission. This led to sensational and revelatory hearings, which publicly refuted the notion that departmental corruption was limited to only a "few rotten apples." In the course of his narrative, Armstrong illuminates police investigative strategy; governmental and departmental political maneuvering; ethical and philosophical issues in law enforcement; the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the police's anticorruption efforts; the effectiveness of the training of police officers; the psychological and emotional pressures that lead to corruption; and the effects of police criminality on individuals and society. He concludes with the effects, in today's world, of Knapp and succeeding investigations into police corruption and the value of permanent outside monitoring bodies, such as the special prosecutor's office, formed in response to the Commission's recommendation, as well as the current monitoring commission, of which Armstrong is chairman.
Street Justice traces the stunning history of police brutality in New York City, and the antibrutality movements that sought to eradicate it, from just after the Civil War through the present. New York's experience with police brutality dates back to the founding of the force and has shown itself in various forms ever since: From late-nineteenth-century "clubbing"-the routine bludgeoning of citizens by patrolmen with nightsticks-to the emergence of the "third degree," made notorious by gangster movies, from the violent mass-action policing of political dissidents during periods of social unrest, such as the 1930s and 1960s, to the tumultuous days following September 11. Yet throughout this varied history, the victims of police violence have remained remarkably similar: they have been predominantly poor and working class, and more often than not they have been minorities. Johnson compellingly argues that the culture of policing will only be changed when enough sustained political pressure and farsighted thinking about law enforcement is brought to bear on the problem.
Former member of the Vandal Squad - a New York police unit devised to protect the subway from hardcore crime and vandalism - Joseph Rivera recounts the days and nights spent in pursuit of the city's most notorious vandals. As the only book on graffiti told from the side of the law, it gives the reader new perspective on the fast-paced cat and mouse tales, presented alongside professional disregard within the department. Featuring unseen images and stories of graffiti's infamous Top 40, this is an unprecendented look at graffiti from the other side of the game.
A story of resistance, power and politics as revealed through New York City’s complex history of police brutality The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri was the catalyst for a national conversation about race, policing, and injustice. The subsequent killings of other black (often unarmed) citizens led to a surge of media coverage which in turn led to protests and clashes between the police and local residents that were reminiscent of the unrest of the 1960s. Fight the Power examines the explosive history of police brutality in New York City and the black community’s long struggle to resist it. Taylor brings this story to life by exploring the institutions and the people that waged campaigns to end the mistreatment of people of color at the hands of the police, including the black church, the black press, black communists and civil rights activists. Ranging from the 1940s to the mayoralty of Bill de Blasio, Taylor describes the significant strides made in curbing police power in New York City, describing the grassroots street campaigns as well as the accomplishments achieved in the political arena and in the city’s courtrooms. Taylor challenges the belief that police reform is born out of improved relations between communities and the authorities arguing that the only real solution is radically reducing the police domination of New York’s black citizens.
