The NYPD will tackle illegal vending, outdoor drug use, homelessness issues, noise, and double parking complaints — issues that touch every New Yorker — with a new Quality of Life Division, Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Adams announced Thursday.
Teams of cops designed to respond to these everyday annoyances will be hitting the streets in precincts enrolled in the new pilot program, said Tisch, who added that non-emergency 311 complaints about double parking, homelessness, noise and aggressive panhandling, have steadily risen over the last six years.
“We’re turning our attention toward the issues that New Yorkers see and feel every day — the things that don’t always make headlines but deeply impact how people live,” Tisch said at a press conference with Adams at the 13th Precinct stationhouse in Gramercy Park. “Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe, and the Quality of Life Division will take a direct approach to address these minor issues impacting our streets and public housing developments.”
Officers from the 13th Precinct are among those taking part in the new program.
The other precincts taking part are Brooklyn’s 60th Precinct in Coney Island and 75th Precinct in East New York, the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway, Queens, the 40th Precinct in Mott Haven, Bronx, and Police Service Area 1, which covers city housing projects in southern Brooklyn.
The only borough so far not involved in the program is Staten Island.
Cops from each command will be assigned to “Q teams” which will respond to 311 calls and monitor trends. Supervisors from the teams will be called to regular Q Stat meetings modeled after CompStat, the department’s method of tracking crimes in real time, allocating resources to prevent more crime and holding commanders accountable for their strategies.
Over the next two months, the initiative will be evaluated and refined before expanding to other commands.
Tisch first announced the Q teams in January at the state of the NYPD breakfast at Cipriani’s. A quality of life crackdown on the subways, which focused on homeless issues and minor infractions such as sleeping across seats, led to the arrest of many offenders wanted for other crimes, officials said.
Civil liberties advocates, which include Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, have pushed back on the ongoing subway crackdown as well as the creation of Q teams, saying the new efforts are another form of “broken windows” policing — enforcing violations and minor misdemeanors with the belief that not doing so prevents a sense of disorder that can lead to more serious crimes.
The Adams administration and Tisch have been proponents of the broken windows policing approach to and have criticized court and bail reforms that have allowed low level criminals to skirt jail time.
“Now is not the time to retreat to broken windows policing,” Clark said last month at a City Council budget hearing. “Now is the time to look ahead to 21st century solutions aimed at keeping the Bronx safe. We start by identifying the root causes of crime and addressing the underlying conditions that lead to a cycle of violence and recidivism.”
The Quality of Life Division will be led by Deputy Chief William Glynn. The 21-year NYPD veteran recently led the department’s crackdown on prostitution and illegal vending on Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. Glynn has also served as the commanding officer of the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the 94th Precinct in Greenpoint.
He oversaw the creation of Community Link, a multi-agency effort to respond to quality of life issues throughout the city.
“We will not tolerate an atmosphere where anything goes and today we are taking public safety to the next level,” Adams said. “Issues like illegal vending, substance use, abandoned vehicles, illegal mopeds, reckless driving, and more have persisted for far too long.”
