Colón’s Corner: What If We…UnMerged?
Why one Police Department in New York City may no longer be enough
Now this is in some senses a follow up to an earlier column I penned last summer on the well-known New York City Police merger of 1995, and for the Transit & Housing alumni reading this, I know how you feel by now & I’m definitely not here to re-litigate any of that. After all, for better or worse, that’s the past.
What this column seeks to address is the present as well as the future when it comes to policing the Big Apple. Fairly recently, the New York Post produced a bombshell detailing the current struggles of the department. Yes, as many have highlighted, well documented external factors like the rise in crime and bail reform are playing a central role in said struggles, that wasn’t so much the shocking revelation in that particular NYP column as was the troubling look at the current culture within the department that has many feeling jaded and just about ready to give up.
All of that to say, even with the departure of 3,200 officers in 2022 per the New York Times, nearly 34,000 officers remain within the NYPD’s ranks and now with the current circumstances, that number may just be too much.
No, no, I’m not saying less police is the answer here. But could the de-centralization of the NYPD be an explorable pathway? Yes, I know it’ll never happen in a million years but with the exodus being a concern (not to mention a record high not seen since the post-9/11 exodus of 2002) and as that Post article highlighted the culture being as broken due to a cavalcade of internal factors like the petty politics of the force, poor pay, bloated chain of command, and confusing guidelines amongst many other hindrances that have led several officers to go be police officers elsewhere if not leave the profession altogether, maybe just maybe, we ought to turn back the clock to a time when three agencies, not one, patrolled & protected New York City.
The New York City Housing Police’ existence was proof positive of the effectiveness of community policing. They weren’t pursuing a certain mold; they were the mold. Their detective bureau? Fine as wine with many great investigators who genuinely loved what they did and seamlessly collaborated with the equally astute sleuths of the NYPD on any and all investigations. Their rescue unit formed in 1993. Adept, efficient, and accredited. Housing now post-merge? A largely undesirable assignment that most cops who first go there after the academy would do anything NOT to have.
The New York City Transit Police meanwhile redefined what it meant to walk a beat. It wasn’t your average beat. After all, how many cops do you know that encounter approximately four million people a day while roaming their post? With four boroughs to handle sans Staten Island, they still had their work cut out for them, but work they did, flipping many preconceived notions of police on their heads, particularly that of the undercover cop.
Its decoy unit world renowned for how believable it was thanks in large part of course to the late great crime fighting visionary Jack Maple who ever so dapper, brought the Transit Police and by extension policing, into the 21st century through that and the paradigm shifting crime tracking model COMPSTAT.
All of that to say with 34,000 cops on the NYPD payroll, a down the middle split of personnel to be thrust into separate departments again may not sound ideal as the department continues to struggle with manpower but should logistically at least be looked at.
At the Transit Police’s peak there were 4,000 sworn officers on the payroll, that’s about where I imagine the number of NYPD cops assigned to the underground city is now. And even if the times have changed significantly, the proper tactics of policing sure haven’t, and with a separate agency, much of the headache bureaucracy the current crop would understandably rather do anything else than deal with is all of a sudden significantly cut down. Less bosses, less bologna, more latitude.
The same can be said for the NYPD Housing Bureau. When HAPD merged in May of 1995, their headcount was 2,550 sworn police officers and while the exact number of officers currently assigned to the projects of the five boroughs eludes me you don’t think they’d benefit from the same thing? A luxury like a more streamlined, accessible, and approachable chain of command that being a separate stand-alone agency provides? A chance to hone necessary patrol and people skills in the humbling proving grounds that were and still are a New York City housing project while fulfilling housing’s mission of meaningful community connection?
Of course, things could be amended to go with the modern times. With how advanced the NYPD Emergency Service Unit has become since they absorbed the rescue units of both police departments in 1995 for example, there probably wouldn’t be a need for Housing or Transit 2.0 to form any of their own ESUs. With the NYPD, Port Authority Police, & even MTA Police Emergency Service Unit, there’s more than enough rescue cops to go around. Furthermore, with the NYPD academy having been the singular police academy in the city since 1982, well before the merger, lateral transfers could and should be allowed from one department to the other. After all the training is the same. Did your time as a tunnel rat in the Transit Police and want to go to an NYPD detective squad? Sure! Just as long as you have the proper credentials and a stellar service record.
Worked patrol in a project with the Housing Police but you really want to be in Emergency Service? Knock yourself out! The old way of having a cop who already knows the job have to go through the academy again to complete his or her roll-over to “big brother” could easily be done away with.
And what of the retirees? The one thing I always come away with from my conversations with my police friends is not just their vast knowledge of the job, but their eagerness to share it. Why not hire the alumni of original Transit & Housing as instructors at the academy, showing the new generation how it’s done. With their acumen and experiences, the pointers they could give Transit & Housing cops of today in a new, independent, and modernized version of both would be invaluable.
Lastly, with the federal funding both departments previously enjoyed, the advances made by each agency with technology in a time where tech wasn’t quite yet understood for the asset it could be for law enforcement, was unparalleled and far ahead of their times respectively. With all the advances technology has made in both the latter half of the ‘90s and well throughout the 21st century, there’s a new gold mine a hypothetical version 2.0 of each agency stands to hit should fed money come back into play. And if they hit it then in the early ‘90s during the infancy stages of tech, they’d surely be able to hit it now.
Yes, this is all hypotheticals and perhaps you’re chiding me as you read this for looking at the current situation through the rose-colored glasses of the past. “No chance Mike!”…you’ve probably uttered numerous times throughout this column. But given where the NYPD is at, given where New York City is at right now, it might not be all that far fetched anymore to let our collective imaginations wander to that possibility. After all with so many other things from the ‘80s & ‘90s coming back into style, why not add our dearly departed police agencies to the mix?
Mike Colón is the host of the Mic’d In New Haven Podcast which can be found on all podcast platforms and is simulcast in video form on YouTube
