City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is breaking ranks with her BFF and calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to hire an extra 1,000 cops, The Post has learned.
The speaker said the additional beat cops are needed to help the mayor achieve his own goals to reduce traffic deaths — a plan he calls “Vision Zero” — and to improve policing tactics and community relationships.
“We want to give Commissioner (Bill) Bratton and the NYPD the tools they need to ensure that NYPD continues to be the best police force possible. By adding 1,000 cops to the beat, NYPD will have more flexibility and will be better able to keep New Yorkers safe,” Mark-Viverito told The Post.
It’s a far cry from fully replenishing the ranks from their high point in 2001, when there were 40,710 officers. Today that number has fallen to only 35,437.
But it’s an important first step, law enforcement sources said.
19 comments:
The NYPD is already massively overstaffed, and its officers are wildly overpaid, with pensions that this city will be paying for for generations. And this tax and spend liberal wants to add more?
Yes, please hire more out of shape fatties who only know.how to give out tickets. I will never depend on the nypd to ever save my life. They are very useless.
Anon #1, how many cops do you actually want in the city of 8.3 million?
The problem is not that there aren't enough cops but that they are not in the right places. If the city hires more cops they will all end up in high crime areas where the locals do not want police and complain about police harassment. The areas of Queens that would like additional police will not get them.
@anon3
http://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/stop-and-frisk/
In March 2002, according the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of New York City police officers was 2.9 times the U.S. average relative to population, and in FY 2011 it was still 2.81 times the U.S. average.
It's a nice write up that you might do well to read through.
Remember also that NYC is the densest city in the country by far, and so the NYPD has a relatively small geographical area to cover.
I'd like to the city drop NYPD staffing levels 20% over the next decade. There are more important uses of limited funds.
Anon #5: shouldn't you be focusing on the number of officers per crimes/misdemeanors or reported incidents? I mean, it's not like you need as many officers per capita in the Hamptons as you do in Hempstead, if you get what I mean...
@anon6
Misdemeanors? No.
Serious crimes? Alright, let's take a look at 2012, number of reported crimes per 100k population. NYC/USA - 2012 because I don't think 2013 numbers have been finalized, at least at the national level.
Homicide rate:
5.1/4.7
Robbery:
243.7/112.9
Aggravated assault:
376.5/242.3
Burglary:
224.8/670.2
Larceny-theft:
1398.6/1959.3
Motor vehicle theft:
98.8/229.7
Yea, the city has some crime issues. But crime in NYC has dropped significantly even as the size of the police force has fallen over the last decade. So if you wanted to maintain a constant level of officers per reported serious crime you'd be cutting the NYPD by a lot more than 20%.
Right now NYC has more retired cops receiving pensions than active cops, and has for more than a decade. In addition, something like 35% of retired cops collect disability. It's over 60% for NYFD. Though they have seen a spike since 9/11. But back in 2000 is was still over 50%. For NJ police and fire retirees - it's under 20%. The NYPD/NYFD unions are like the ones at the LIRR. Overpaid, underworked scum who are robbing you blind. Pay attention to who is advocating raises and (unfunded) pension hikes, and understand that these guys together with the teachers union are a good chunk of why your tax burden is one of if not the highest in the nation.
NY State does pay the highest taxes.
I think the pension contributions / disability bump and the number of active duty officers are separate issues here. If civil servants paid more into their funds and we crack down on the disability abuse, we could weather the current numbers.
"Pay attention to who is advocating raises and (unfunded) pension hikes, and understand that these guys together with the teachers union are a good chunk of why your tax burden is one of if not the highest in the nation."
Yeah because all of the illegals we feed, educate, and give free medical care to, and the people in the projects driving bmws, land rovers, and Mercedes while sitting home all day watching tv are not making the taxes go through the roof.
I'm sure the cop, firefighter, or teacher busting his/ her ass for an ungrateful city making just enough to pay rent and bills and driving a 10 year old car is the one bankrupting the city.
The city's pension contributions are more than the city spends on public assistance, social services, children's services, homeless services, health and mental hygiene, housing preservation and development, parks and recreation, and transportation by a wide margin. If the NYPD was reduced to per capita staffing levels of the LAPD, salary alone you'd save 1.5 billion dollars annually. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 more than that saving on fringe benefits and pensions as well. And you don't think overstaffing and unwarranted pension hikes for the NYPD, NYFD, department of corrections, and teachers has an effect?
Right there are why the city is broke. Now the last few decades the pension funds for those guys hasn't been funded. So for the next few decades the city will suffer for that. It's time to make a step in the right direction and rein in the ruinous staffing levels at the NYPD.
"In March 2002, according the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of New York City police officers was 2.9 times the U.S. average relative to population, and in FY 2011 it was still 2.81 times the U.S. average."
What?
Where are you getting these numbers?
BLS on police in 2008 shows almost 2 million full/part time officers.
For a nation of 300 million, that's a little over 1:150.
In NYC, we have about 35K officers for 8.3 million people, or 1:237.
Please cite sources.
LA has about 10K officers (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/28/local/la-me-lapd-10k-20130429) for about 3.86 million people, which makes NYC about 1.6x more officers per capita, but certainly not the 2.9 or 2.8 you pulled out.
LA, though it's gotten better, has a history of some serious crime problems with drugs and gangs, and the state a whole host of financial problems.
Hasn't it been discussed on this blog that under Kelly the PD had been systematically encouraging underreporting of crimes and downgrading reports that are made? Whether or not this implicit policy continues under Braxton/DeBlasio remains to be seen, but until the COMPSTAT padding issue is resolved, those crime numbers (besides homicides) are not to be trusted.
2 million police officers? Did you even read the source you linked?
Those 35k NYPD officers are sworn officers. Nationally, according to your source, there were 765246 sworn officers (full time) and 44062 sworn officers (part time) in 2008.
Not two million. However even this overstates matters, because that includes much more than local police, numbering at just 461063 full time sworn officers, 27810 part time sworn officers. Among those included in the larger numbers listed above are the police arms of the PA and MTA. The two largest state and local law enforcement agencies with transportation related jurisdictions by number of full time sworn personnel as can be seen on page 11, table 11.
The 2.8 I 'pulled out' was compared to the number of local police nationwide. Not in LA specifically.
Now lets be fair here. The issue isn't the police, the firemen, the teachers, the transit workers as a whole. It's generation greed. Younger members are being paid less so that older members can cash out big time. They're screwed over as much as the overburdened taxpayers in this. When retiree health funds collapse and the state is driven into bankruptcy and starts reneging on pension promises in a few decades they won't care. They already got there's.
You're right, it's greed, but the retiree funds do not have to collapse if the current active members begin contributing modestly more and put in more years before they can collect.
You mean the pension was underfunded in the past and you want to make up for that by having current workers pay for it? They have to pay for their pension and the pension of older workers? That's how the younger workers get screwed over to pay for generation greed.
Look what Cuomo just did with the TWU. 8% raise over 5 years. Paid for without increasing state contributions, without increasing fares. Instead take money that was going to the capital plan, and to fund the pensions. Let someone pay for it tomorrow. That's always the plan.
No more raises for older members. No more pensions hikes. Stop stealing from the next generation.
Thankfully De Blasio has shot down this request for more officers.
"They have to pay for their pension and the pension of older workers?"
You can slice it one way or the other, but not both. No one pays for now + future. Accounting just doesn't work that way. The funds are invested under a defined benefit.
It's got its problems, but what the hell are you going to do besides bellyache? The best way to fix the problem is some mix of bumping up the minimum retirement age or years service, increasing contributions, and holding down raises in the payout.
Ready to break out the calculator?
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