New York City Police Department Research Articles

Trends in police complaints and arrests on New York City subways, 2018 to 2023: an interrupted time-series analysis

BackgroundPublic transportation use is influenced by perceptions of safety. Concerns related to crime on New York City (NYC) transit have risen following NYC’s COVID-19 pandemic state of emergency declaration in 2020, leading to declines in subway ridership. In response, the most recent mayoral administration implemented a Subway Safety Plan in 2022. This study aimed to quantify the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Subway Safety Plan on rates of complaints to and arrests by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) Transit Bureau.MethodsUsing publicly available data on complaints and arrests, we conducted interrupted time-series analyses using autoregressive integrated moving average models applied to monthly data for the period from September 2018 to August 2023. We estimated changes in the rates of complaints to and arrests by the NYPD Transit Bureau before and after: (1) the COVID-19 pandemic state of emergency declaration (i.e., March 2020), and (2) the announcement of the Subway Safety Plan (i.e., February 2022). We also examined trends by complaint and arrest type as well as changes in proportion of arrests by demographic and geographic groups.ResultsAfter the COVID-19 pandemic declaration, there was an 84% increase (i.e., an absolute increase of 6.07 per 1,000,000 riders, CI 1.42, 10.71) in complaints to the NYPD Transit Bureau, including a 99% increase (0.91 per 1,000,000 riders, CI 0.42, 1.41) in complaints for assault and a 125% increase in complaints for harassment (0.94 per 1,000,000 riders, CI 0.29, 1.60). Following the Subway Safety Plan there was an increase in the rate of arrests for harassment (0.004 per 1,000,000 riders, CI 0.001, 0.007), as well as decreases in the proportion of arrests for individuals racialized as White (− 0.02, CI − 0.04, − 0.01) and proportion of arrests in the borough of Manhattan (− 0.13, CI − 0.17, − 0.09).ConclusionsThe increased rates of complaints to the NYPD Transit Bureau following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic remained elevated following the enactment of the Subway Safety Plan. Further evaluation efforts can help identify effective means of promoting safety on public transportation.

From 9/11 to the POST Act: democratic oversight of police surveillance technologies in New York City

ABSTRACT September 11, 2001 resulted in the drastic expansion of intelligence and surveillance capacities in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the NYPD has continued to adopt emergent surveillance technologies. These tools have investigative applications beyond counterterrorism and many worry their use is outpacing oversight and regulation. The transformations of the NYPD in the early 2000s were followed by major – if lagged – changes to the external oversight of police and surveillance tools, including the 2013 establishment of an Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD and the Public Oversight of Technology (POST) Act in 2020. This article tracks these developments and their capacity to mitigate information asymmetries, enhance transparency, and ultimately influence the use of police surveillance technologies in New York City.

Noise Complaints and Land Rezoning as a Predictor of Hate Crimes in a New York City Borough.

Hate crimes generally have severe victim outcomes compared to other crimes, and therefore warrant further investigation. These types of crimes can often happen in neighborhoods where people from various cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, etc. meet. Understanding how neighborhood tensions impact the level of hate crimes is important in reducing hate crimes and building community. The current study investigates neighborhood level predictors of hate crimes in a borough of New York City (NYC). Using symbolic threat and defended neighborhoods frameworks, we consider how 311 noise complaints and land use rezoning data can be predictors of hate crimes. We use data from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and NYC Land Use Tax Output. We find that hate crimes are more likely in the neighborhoods where the noise complaints and land use rezoning are higher than the median. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed below.

Policing the streets of New York City during the COVID pandemic: With a comparative angle

Abstract New York City, known as ‘the city that never sleeps’, was taken by surprise by the total lockdown, imposed on its residents in March 2020 as a result of the ongoing COVID pandemic. To say that nobody was prepared for this type of extreme lockdown is an understatement. The enforcement of the requirements to wear masks in public and the prohibition of outside gathering was placed on the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The NYPD appeared to be as unprepared for this new monitoring and enforcement role much as any other governmental institution. In addition to the pandemic, a wave of anti-police sentiments swept the USA, including New York City, leaving the NYPD exposed to violent demonstrations and lootings.

“My mother was my everything”: Police Murder, Family Loss and Deferred Dreams

ABSTRACT On December 9, 1984, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer fatally shot New York mother of three Sharon Walker. Police violence not only killed Walker: The bullet lodged in her body harmed all those who loved her, particularly her three teenage children. Broadening conversations on police violence, this article examines the diverse ways in which police violence and parental loss impact the lives of a less familiar community of police brutality survivors: children and teenagers. It employs the 1984 police murder of Sharon Walker and her children’s lives as a window into what anthropologist Christen Smith referred to as the “lingering, deathly aftereffects of police terror on the bodies of the living in the aftermath of police killings” (Smith, “Lingering Trauma” 370).

Officer-involved deaths and the duty to intervene: assessing the impact of DTI policy in New York City, 2000–2019

PurposeIn the current study, the authors explore changes in multiple police officer-involved deaths (MOIDs) and on changes in the racial makeup of MOID victims in different stages of implementation of a duty-to-intervene (DTI) policy by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).Design/methodology/approachThe authors use fatal encounters to analyze data on MOIDs involving NYPD officers from 2000 to 2019, including three time periods: pre-DTI, initial DTI, and revised DTI. The authors use non-equivalent dependent variables design and t-tests to determine the significance of differences in MOID occurrence and civilian race between these periods.FindingsThe greatest reduction in MOIDs was observed during the initial DTI period, followed by an uptick in MOIDs during the revised DTI period. We also observed that MOIDs are racialized events that disproportionately impact Black New Yorkers. This remained the case even after the implementation of DTI.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors find mixed support for DTI as an administrative control for preventing MOIDs and reducing racial disparities in MOIDs. DTI implementation period, the significant reductions in MOIDs in the initial DTI period, but not the second also lends support for the notion that community pressure (i.e. resurgence of Black Lives Matter) also impacts officer behavior. This suggests that along with strong administrative controls, the behavior of the public may also be an important factor in controlling officer behavior.Originality/valueThis article contributes to the growing literature on duty to intervene and offers an early investigation into DTI as an administrative control for MOIDs using the NYPD as a case study. The authors examine changes in MOIDs and the racial makeup of civilians who were killed in MOIDs in three DTI periods. To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has done this.

Organizational Practice and Neighborhood Context of Racial Inequality in Police Use-of-Force

Abstract Recent highly-publicized cases of police violence have raised broader discussions around understanding use-of-force as institutional racism. We explore how variation in police practices, including discretionary stops and targeting outdoor spaces, along with racialized understandings of crime and space, help explain use-of-force in neighborhoods. Using stop-and-frisk data from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in Census tracts (N = 12675) between 2006 and 2012, we conduct a spatial analysis and estimate multilevel negative binomial regression models. We find relationships between use-of-force incidents and police organizational practices, where police use force more often in neighborhoods where they employ greater discretionary stops, and in neighborhoods where police conduct proportionally more indoor stops. Our findings also point to understanding stop-and-frisk as a spatial strategy concentrated largely in neighborhoods of color, where police use force more often in Black and Latinx neighborhoods above and beyond the racial disproportionately of individuals stopped. Police also use force more often in neighborhoods where they perceive more crime, even after accounting for the observed crime rate. We suggest that use-of-force by the NYPD is systematically produced through organizational practices paired with shared racialized understandings of crime and space that vary across neighborhoods.

Does Police Use of Twitter Align With and Enhance Community Policing Objectives? An Analysis of the New York City Police Department’s Twitter Activity

Prior research has examined how social media has been integrated into law enforcement operations; however, this research has not fully explored the potential for this technology to function as an effective community policing strategy. Through the creation of a uniquely large dataset constructed with individual “tweets,” the current study analyzed Twitter use by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in 2016. Using a mixed-methods approach, this research identified linkages between social media and community policing, the level of adherence to community policing objectives, the potential for heterogeneity in usage across different NYPD patrol boroughs, and the degree of public engagement. Our findings suggest Twitter is inimitably positioned to contribute to each aspect of community policing, although its effectiveness varied across dimension typology. Second, heterogeneity was also observed across patrol boroughs, indicating both the objectives and application of social media varies within the agency. Lastly, engagement metrics reveal a few notable trends concerning police-community relations.

Police Violence in Black and White

AbstractDrawing on articles fromThe New York Timesand theNew York Amsterdam News, this study analyzes reporting on the police killings of ten-year-old Clifford Glover in 1973, and twenty-three-year-old Sean Bell in 2006, in both instances by New York City Police Department (NYPD) 103rdPrecinct officers in Jamaica, Queens. Using critical discourse analysis to study the differences in newspaper representations of police killings, this analysis follows Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s classic 1892 studySouthern Horrors: Lynch Law in All its Phases.Wells-Barnett’s framework of Black Press and White Press is applied to this contemporary comparison of news coverage, asking how Black Press and White Press challenge or accept official police accounts of encounters where police kill Black youth and adults, as well as how they engage community members in their account of events leading to fatal police contact. The study historically contextualizes the localized relationship between police violence, media, and protest by focusing on depictions of two separate, publicized police killings and subsequent officer acquittals in the same neighborhood and precinct, thirty-three years apart. Studying the history of policing and rebellion in one neighborhood provides critical insight into representations of localized police violence by Black Press and White Press over time. The findings of this study function together to explain racialized discourse on police, victims, and communities in the wake of historic police violence and officer acquittals.

Ridesharing and alcohol-related assaults in NYC: A spatial ecological case-crossover study

ObjectiveRidesharing has changed urban transportation and the distribution of some health outcomes, including alcohol consumption. Studies relating ridesharing to crime and violence at low space-time resolution (e.g., county-months) find mixed results. The aim of this study was to examine whether ridesharing was associated with increased incidence of alcohol-related assaults within highly resolved space-time units. MethodsThis spatial ecological case-crossover study used rideshare and taxi trip data from the New York City (NYC) Taxi and Limousine Commission for 2017–2018 and assault data from the NYC Police Department, aggregated within taxi zone-hours. Conditional logistic regression models estimated the odds of observing an assault for case taxi zone-hours in which an assault occurred compared to two control units of the same taxi zone-hour one week before (−168 h) and one week after (+168 h) relative to the number of rideshare trips. Separate analyses assessed assaults occurring at bars and restaurants. ResultsFrom 2017–2018, there were 47,124 nighttime assaults in the 262 taxi zones. There were 2482 taxi zone-hours at a bar and 693 taxi zone-hours at a restaurant that contained at least one nighttime assault. Ridesharing was positively associated with nighttime assaults at bars (OR: 1.050; 95% CI: 1.002–1.100) but not at restaurants (OR: 1.049; 95% CI: 0.943–1.168). ConclusionsAdditional ridesharing trips are associated with increased incidence of assaults at on-premise alcohol outlets in NYC at the precise hour and taxi zone of trip origins.

Body‐worn cameras, lawful police stops, and NYPD officer compliance: A cluster randomized controlled trial*

AbstractThe federal court settlement of Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (2013) mandated that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) implement a series of reforms to address unlawful stop, question, and frisk patterns and practices. Among other changes, the remedial order required the NYPD to implement and evaluate a pilot body‐worn camera program to determine whether outfitting officers with the technology led to more lawful and civil police–citizen encounters. A cluster randomized controlled trial involving 40 police precincts and 3,889 NYPD officers was used to evaluate the effects of body‐worn cameras on a series of police work activity, civility, and lawfulness outcomes. Relative to control officers, citizen complaints against treatment officers outfitted with body‐worn cameras were reduced by 21 percent. Treatment officers, however, also filed nearly 39 percent more stop reports when compared with control officers. Treatment stop reports tended to involve minority subjects, were less likely to involve arrests and summons, and were significantly more likely to be rated as not meeting constitutional justifications for stops, frisks, and searches. These results suggest that body‐worn cameras improved NYPD officer compliance with mandates to document all stops and could be used to address unlawful policing through better detection of problematic police–citizen encounters.

Who Watches the Watchmen: Evidence of the Effect of Body-Worn Cameras on New York City Policing

Abstract We present a multi-year study of the rollout of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Our study adds to the prior body of work by clarifying some of the discord within it, particularly with respect to large urban police departments. We estimate the effect of BWC deployment on precinct volumes of citizen stops, arrests, complaints against officers, and use-of-force incidents. Results indicate that BWCs drive significant increases in stops and decreases in arrests and citizen complaints. We observe no effect on use of force. We also document heterogeneity in affected stops and complaints. Our findings speak to three potential benefits of BWCs in urban law enforcement: an increase in legitimate stops made by police; a decrease in complaints alleging officers’ abuse of authority; and a reduction in arrests (which appears beneficial, regardless of whether this results from improved behavior among police or citizens).

Environmental Factors Influencing Urban Homicide Clearance Rates: A Spatial Analysis of New York City

In this paper, we explore the conditions under which clearance rates improve by looking at the experience across New York City. Using one agency provides a control on the administrative differences that appear across other jurisdictions that have been studied, usually through cross-national analysis. Our analysis uses Risk Terrain Modeling (RTM) to identify environmental features that relate to closed versus open homicide cases using two years of New York City Police Department (NYPD) data. This analysis is supplemented with an investigation of precinct-wide social structure variables to examine how context matters in influencing closure rates.

City council and national security: oversight of local counterterrorism and security intelligence

ABSTRACT Following 11 September 2001, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) established and expanded counterterrorism and security intelligence capacities to an extent unprecedented for an American local government. These powers necessitated new legislative oversight responsibilities. While the NYPD’s efforts to address terrorism have received scholarly attention, City Council oversight of those efforts has not. This study helps fill that gap by examining the amount and nature of City Council – specifically the Committee on Public Safety – oversight hearings pertaining to terrorism and its mitigation. It also discusses additional City Council oversight options and needed research directions.

School safety agents’ identification of adolescent bullying

The literature on law enforcement to enhance school safety, specifically bullying prevention, continues to grow. However, there is scant information on the use of New York City Police Department (NYPD) school safety agents (SSAs) who are peace offers, similar to a police officer, but not equipped with a firearm. This study uses 882 survey responses from another type of law enforcement officer, SSAs, to explore factors that influence perceptions of their role in bullying prevention and decision-making when presented with instances of bullying. Multivariate logistic analyses indicate that SSAs in assigned to New York City public schools who identify instances of bullying are more likely to intervene. The results also highlight areas to enhance a schools’ anti-bullying efforts with the inclusion of police officers.

The Role of Individual Officer Characteristics in Police Shootings

Assessing whether individual characteristics of police officers such as age, race, and prior performance influence police behavior has been a long-standing topic of social science research. The effect of officer characteristics on their risk of shooting people is confounded by police assignments and by the environmental factors associated with those assignments. This article provides a method to separate out the influence of individual officer characteristics from environmental factors. Using data from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Major Cities’ Chiefs Association (MCCA), the analysis finds that police officers who join the NYPD later in their careers have a lower shooting risk: for each additional year of their recruitment age, the odds of being shooters declines by 10 percent. Both officer race and prior problem behavior (e.g., losing a firearm, crashing a department vehicle) predict up to three times greater odds of shooting, yet officers who made numerous misdemeanor arrests were four times less likely to shoot.

Who Watches the Watchmen: Evidence of the Effect of Body-Worn Cameras on New York City Policing

We present a multi-year study of the rollout of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Our study adds to the prior body of work by clarifying some of the discord within it, particularly with respect to large urban police departments. We estimate the effect of BWC deployment on precinct volumes of citizen stops, arrests, complaints against officers and use-of-force incidents. Results indicate that BWCs drive significant increases in stops and decreases in arrests and citizen complaints. We observe no effect on use of force. We also document heterogeneity in affected stops and complaints. Our findings speak to three potential benefits of BWCs in urban law enforcement: an increase in legitimate stops made by police; a decrease in complaints alleging officers’ abuse of authority; and a reduction in arrests (which appears beneficial, regardless of whether this results from improved behavior among police or citizens).

Field, capital and the policing habitus: Understanding Bourdieu through the NYPD’s post-9/11 counterterrorism practices

This article extends existing Bourdieusian theory in criminology and security literature through examining the practices of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in the post-9/11 counterterrorism field. This article makes several original contributions. First, it explores the resilient nature of the policing habitus, extending Bourdieusian criminological findings that habitus are entrenched and difficult to change. Second, this article examines the way the resilient habitus drives subordinate factions to displace dominant factions in a field’s established social hierarchy through boundary-pushing practices, a concept previously unexamined in Bourdieusian criminology. Drawing on original documentary analysis, this article uses the illustrative example of the NYPD’s post-9/11 counterterrorism practices, exploring how it sought to displace the existing social structure by using its aggressive policing habitus and an infusion of ‘War on Terror’ capital to challenge the dominant position of the FBI in the post-9/11 counterterrorism field. The NYPD’s habitus driven counterterrorism practices were novel and unprecedented, creating strain with both the FBI and local communities.

Using Shifts in Deployment and Operations to Test for Racial Bias in Police Stops

We rely on a policy experiment in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to address the well-known problems of omitted variable bias and infra-marginality in traditional outcomes tests of racial bias in police stops. The NYPD designated specific areas as impact zones and deployed extra officers to these areas and encouraged them to conduct more intensive stop, question, and frisk activity. We find that the NYPD are more likely to frisk black and Hispanic suspects after an area becomes an impact zone compared to other areas of the city.

Coopting Cops with Maps: The Rhetorical Power of Cartography in Modern Policing

In the 1990s, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) famously implemented a new strategy for reducing crime. Along with a “broken windows” orientation, police leadership used new management principles to analyze crime and direct police force activities, and geospatial software was central to these principles. The use of maps increases the credibility of an argument, but a critical examination of the historical development of policing tactics and the application of rhetorical concepts calls into question the validity of the NYPD's use of mapping in the context of crime reduction. A comparative analysis of the NYPD's CompStat efforts and a counter-mapping effort by theguardian.com illustrates the rhetorical power and the perils of maps.