[de Blasio] Living in a post-Bloomberg era

[11B4V]

And traffic citations are down 94% for the last week:  http://jalopnik.com/traffic-stops-in-new-york-city-just-dropped-an-insane-9-1676382903.     What a bunch of petulant thin-skinned scumbags.  Does PBA not realize that they're one publicized drunk-driving mass-casualty accident away from a shit-ton of negative publicity?

I could be wrong, but I've been told that NY cops make huge amounts of money. On Long Island I was told the starting salary is into the 6 figures (I realize that isn't NYC where it is less edit--and checking it seems it depends on experience, but the salaries are pretty high http://nypost.com/2014/02/28/struggling-suffolk-boosts-cops-pay/ ). The job must be far safer than it has been in the past.

You are wrong. Google would be your friend. Starting pay of six figs for a proby, I doubt that.
http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits-salary/overview

[alfred russel]

You are wrong. Google would be your friend. Starting pay of six figs for a proby, I doubt that.
http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits-salary/overview

$90k after 5.5 years seems rather decent to me. 

[CountDeMoney]

How about they do have those fears, and there is some basis for having them, but they are overstated by a considerable degree?

So, the Black community has those fears and they have some basis in reality, but let's not get too carried away?

Yeah I guess that's option 2.5) - somewhere between 2) and 3). Fair enough.

It's not like they're being lynched anymore, you know.  They can vote now!

[CountDeMoney]

I was hoping the reader would get there by putting together the implications of:
Sentence 1 & 2: They make a lot of money
Sentence 3: Their jobs aren't so dangerous
combined with what I quoted from DGuller.

Luckily, the reader knows you're talking out of your ass.

[11B4V]

You are wrong. Google would be your friend. Starting pay of six figs for a proby, I doubt that.
http://www.nypdrecruit.com/benefits-salary/overview

$90k after 5.5 years seems rather decent to me. 

That is rather low. Most likely offset by OT however.

[alfred russel]

I was hoping the reader would get there by putting together the implications of:
Sentence 1 & 2: They make a lot of money
Sentence 3: Their jobs aren't so dangerous
combined with what I quoted from DGuller.

Luckily, the reader knows you're talking out of your ass.

To make sure the reader understood that, I prefaced sentence 1 with "i could be wrong" and remarked in sentence 2 "I was told that". 

[garbon]

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-benefits-of-fewer-nypd-arrests/384126/

...

NYPD officers and union leaders have been at odds with Mayor Bill de Blasio in the wake of the Eric Garner case and the killings of Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos this month. In their latest move, officers have begun a "virtual work stoppage" throughout the city by making fewer low-level arrests and issuing fewer citations. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, New York's largest police union, urged its members not to make arrests "unless absolutely necessary," according to the New York Post's report.

Although safety is cited as the reason for the police union's move, political considerations are central. "This is not a slowdown for slowdown's sake," a police source told the Post. "Cops are concerned, after the reaction from City Hall on the Garner case, about de Blasio not backing them." The NYPD slowdown also comes amid protracted contract negotiations between police unions and the mayor's office.

The Post, which enthusiastically championed the NYPD during this year's turmoil, portrayed this slowdown in near-apocalyptic terms—an early headline for the article above even read "Crime wave engulfs New York following execution of cops." But the police union's phrasing—officers shouldn't make arrests "unless absolutely necessary"—begs the question: How many unnecessary arrests was the NYPD making before now?

Policing quality doesn't necessarily increase with policing quantity, as New York's experience with stop-and-frisk demonstrated. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg asserted that the controversial tactic of warrantless street searches "keeps New York City safe." De Blasio ended the program soon after succeeding him, citing its discriminatory impact on black and Hispanic residents. Stop-and-frisk incidents plunged from 685,724 stops in 2011 to just 38,456 in the first three-quarters of 2014 as a result. If stop-and-frisk had caused the ongoing decline in New York's crime rate, its near-absence would logically halt or even reverse that trend. But the city seems to be doing just fine without it: Crime rates are currently at two-decade lows, with homicide down 7 percent and robberies down 14 percent since 2013.

The slowdown also challenges the fundamental tenets of broken-windows policing, a controversial strategy championed by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. According to the theory, which first came to prominence in a 1982 article in The Atlantic, "quality-of-life" crimes like vandalism and vagrancy help normalize criminal behavior in neighborhoods and precede more violent offenses. Tackling these low-level offenses therefore helps prevent future ones. The theory's critics dispute its effectiveness and contend that broken-windows policing simply criminalizes the young, the poor, and the homeless.

Public drinking and urination may be unseemly, but they're hardly threats to life, liberty, or public order. (The Post also noted a decline in drug arrests, but their comparison of 2013 and 2014 rates is misleading. The mayor's office announced in November that police would stop making arrests for low-level marijuana possession and issue tickets instead. Even before the slowdown began, marijuana-related arrests had declined by 61 percent.) If the NYPD can safely cut arrests by two-thirds, why haven't they done it before?

The human implications of this question are immense. Fewer arrests for minor crimes logically means fewer people behind bars for minor crimes. Poorer would-be defendants benefit the most; three-quarters of those sitting in New York jails are only there because they can't afford bail. Fewer New Yorkers will also be sent to Rikers Island, where endemic brutality against inmates has led to resignations, arrests, and an imminent federal civil-rights intervention over the past six months. A brush with the American criminal-justice system can be toxic for someone's socioeconomic and physical health.

The NYPD might benefit from fewer unnecessary arrests, too. Tensions between the mayor and the police unions originally intensified after a grand jury failed to indict a NYPD officer for the chokehold death of Eric Garner during an arrest earlier this year. Garner's arrest wasn't for murder or arson or bank robbery, but on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes—hardly the most serious of crimes. Maybe the NYPD's new "absolutely necessary" standard for arrests would have produced a less tragic outcome for Garner then. Maybe it will for future Eric Garners too.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/31/nypd-slowdown-arrests-de-blasio-union-chief

NYPD work slowdown not official but 'understandable', says union president

A reported work slowdown by NYPD officers has not been sanctioned by one of the city's largest police unions, the Detectives' Endowment Association (DEA). However, its president calls the move "quite understandable".

Arrest rates in New York City fell by 66% year-on-year for the week starting 22 December, according to the New York Post. This decrease has been attributed to disgruntled police officers frustrated with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who remains at odds with police union chiefs following the fatal shooting of two NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in Brooklyn last week.

DEA president Michael Palladino told the Guardian that "no work stoppage has been sanctioned by the unions", but added as officers were now "targets for execution" it was "enough to make anyone hesitate regardless of your profession".

...

[Jacob]

I've heard suggestions that deBlasio could do pretty well to run on "I reduced pointless and expensive traffic tickets by 94%" and that many New Yorkers are in fact not upset that the NYPD is doing less arrests for minor offences.

[derspiess]

I've heard suggestions that deBlasio could do pretty well to run on "I reduced pointless and expensive traffic tickets by 94%" and that many New Yorkers are in fact not upset that the NYPD is doing less arrests for minor offences.

Depends on how long you think that will last.

[garbon]

I've heard suggestions that deBlasio could do pretty well to run on "I reduced pointless and expensive traffic tickets by 94%" and that many New Yorkers are in fact not upset that the NYPD is doing less arrests for minor offences.

I think the only thing that could change that is if we do see an uptick in other crimes a la what the broken windows theory would suggest.

[Jacob]

I think the only thing that could change that is if we do see an uptick in other crimes a la what the broken windows theory would suggest.

I'm thinking we won't, but it remains to be seen.

On the other hand, the police is saying they're still responding to significant crimes so an uptick will presumably be dealt with adequately.

[garbon]

I think the only thing that could change that is if we do see an uptick in other crimes a la what the broken windows theory would suggest.

I'm thinking we won't, but it remains to be seen.

On the other hand, the police is saying they're still responding to significant crimes so an uptick will presumably be dealt with adequately.

Yeah, I suppose we'll see.

I'm not sure how you can deal adequately with an increase in homicides, for example.

[DGuller]

I've heard suggestions that deBlasio could do pretty well to run on "I reduced pointless and expensive traffic tickets by 94%" and that many New Yorkers are in fact not upset that the NYPD is doing less arrests for minor offences.

That may well be the case for most of the minor arrests and tickets, but traffic enforcement is no joke.  NYC drivers are bad enough and reckless enough as it is;  if you send a message out there that the roads are unregulated raceways, tragedies can happen on a scale much bigger than what the cops are "fearful" of.

[Jacob]

I've heard suggestions that deBlasio could do pretty well to run on "I reduced pointless and expensive traffic tickets by 94%" and that many New Yorkers are in fact not upset that the NYPD is doing less arrests for minor offences.

Depends on how long you think that will last.

Yeah, I'm sure the NYPD will stop that if they think it's making the mayor more popular

Though, I suppose, that could be seen as backing down... if it turns out their action is to stop most pointless hassling and people are mostly happy about it, I'm not sure what their next winning move is from that position.

[Eddie Teach]

I think the only thing that could change that is if we do see an uptick in other crimes a la what the broken windows theory would suggest.

I don't think this will last long enough to validate or invalidate that theory.