Bill Bratton on Wednesday unveiled his major “re-engineering” of the NYPD — a plan that aims to give borough commanders greater control over all cops assigned to their precincts, boost morale and improve community relations.
Highlights of the plan, announced during a meeting at 1 Police Plaza with hundreds of cops who took part in the effort, include:
- A pilot program in Queens South precincts in which specialized cops, such as gang and drug squads, report directly to borough commanders instead of brass downtown.
- A computerized system to announce openings in specialized units that provides information on how to apply — an effort to counter complaints of nepotism.
- Apps that can translate languages and check fingerprints for the tablets and smartphones cops are getting.
- A vow to speed up repairs and renovations of bathrooms and other decrepit facilities in aging station houses.
Bratton said that, together, the measures would dramatically change the department’s culture, and he praised the cops who volunteered to take part in realizing it.
“I promised you at the beginning that your work would be worthwhile; that it would not end up in a report and sit on a shelf somewhere,” he said.
Chief of Department James O’Neill said one of the most important elements is the creation of the Strategic and Tactical Command pilot program, which requires specialized cops to report to borough commanders, who know their neighborhoods better than do commanders downtown.
“Right now, we are very bureau-centric. We are looking for geographical accountability and we do that by putting the local detective squads, the local narcotic and gang squads . . . under control of the patrol borough commander,” O’Neill said.
“This way, no one knows better than the borough commanders what we are looking to do in specific neighborhoods.”
The program will go citywide if it succeeds.
Over the past 19 months, the 1,200 cops who volunteered to be part of the re-engineering effort interviewed officers of all ranks to pick their brains.
The department also set up an online suggestion portal where more than 5,000 cops gave their opinions on hundreds of issues.
High on cops’ list was the poor condition of many of the NYPD’s facilities, a number of which have not been renovated in nearly 50 years, Bratton said.
Cops also complained that they felt the department was often stacked against them when they sought promotions to elite units.