The NYPD has experienced several scandals lately. Action is needed — but not the changes always put forward by the department’s critics.
The problem is definitely real. Eight current and former officers were recently arrested on charges of illegally transporting firearms across state lines. A few months back, some officers were charged with planting drugs on suspects. Plus, the other shoe finally dropped in the long-running ticket-fixing probe: Sixteen officers have been indicted on various charges, and many more face administrative discipline.
Over the years, I’ve seen scandals wreck the lives not only of cops caught up in them but also of their families. All NYPD officers are going to pay a heavy price for the current problems. For one thing, their testimony will be constantly challenged in court proceedings. Cases that should be won will be lost.
What to do?
One recently popular remedy is a federal consent decree that imposes monitors on police departments. This often makes good cops reluctant to act against criminals, thereby lessening public safety.
Another favorite nostrum is the establishment of a civilian-oversight body, such as a board of commissioners. In fact, a board of four civilians ruled the New York Police Department in the 19th century. It usually was corrupt; it always was engaged in politics.
In the 1890s, Teddy Roosevelt was president of the board — and grew so disgusted with opposition from some members that he resigned. As governor, in 1900, he rammed through a bill giving control of the department to a single commissioner, the system that exists to this day.
By their nature, boards lend themselves to politics or worse. That’s why New York City got rid of the Board of Education a few years ago. In Los Angeles, a civilian-police board prevented neither the 1991 Rodney King beating nor the Rampart division scandal of the late ’90s, in which a number of cops were found to have engaged in unprovoked shootings, planting evidence and dealing narcotics. Chicago’s had a civilian board since 1960, yet it has suffered many scandals.
It’s easy to set up an investigating commission, promulgate a law or change the organizational structure. Over the years, we’ve tried all those “fixes” for the NYPD. None has had much effect, because they don’t focus on the real problem — the department’s internal culture.
As Lincoln Steffens wrote in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, a police station “is a great place for traditions. There walk the ghosts of men notorious in their time.”
On a rookie’s first day in his precinct, the veterans tell him, “Kid, forget everything they told you in the academy; now we’re going to show you how it really is.” In that environment, it’s easy for some cops to be led astray by those who would legitimize criminal conduct, whether corruption or the use of excessive force, by claiming, “We’ve always done it that way.”
Most cops don’t go along, and it is a slur against them to suggest otherwise. But the vast honest majority often fails to stop the corrupt or weak ones from going off the rails.
So what we need to do is change the occupational culture. It won’t be easy, but it’s the only way to bring about significant and permanent improvement.
Among the measures the NYPD could adopt is to assign new officers to model precincts staffed by the best service members. Other answers include periodic retraining and the assignment of outstanding precinct cops as peer counselors to mentor their fellow officers.
But such programs can’t simply be management initiatives. They need the support of the police unions and fraternal groups. You can’t change a culture without working with its institutions.
In many years of observing police across the country, I picked up a great line that some streetwise cops used when a colleague suggested doing something of dubious legality. They’d say, “I know the road to the penitentiary; I don’t need you to show me how to get there.”
Thomas A. Reppetto, a former police commander, is the author of the forthcoming book “American Police, 1945-2012.”