History of the New York Police Department - Essay Example

Insert Introduction One of the most efficiently managed police departments in the United s is the New York PoliceDepartment, commonly known as the NYPD or the NYCPD. NYPD is the largest municipal force in America and assumes primary responsibilities in investigations and law enforcement within the New York City’s five boroughs. According to NYPD charter, NYPD’s mission is to enforce the law, maintain peace, abate fear and provide citizens with a safe environment. History of the Police Department As already stated, the NYPD is one of the oldest police departments to be established in the US. In this light, NYPD also traces its roots to the 1625 first Dutch eight man night watch. At this time, New York was still New Amsterdam. NYPD would then be established in 1845 to replace the 1625 first Dutch eight man night watch system. Particularly, on New Year’s Day, 1898, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Richmond [which had heretofore been being called Staten Island] were officially consolidated to make the Greater City of New York. The same New Year’s Day witnessed the founding of the NYPD as the eighteen distinct police departments in the aforementioned areas were merged into a single unit that consisted of 6,396 members. The number of these members had been determined by the terms spelled out in the City Chart. The annual salary for a top patrolman in the then consolidated department was 1,400 for a schedule of a minimum of 292 sixteen-hour working days. 64 out of the 96 hours work weeks were to be spent on reserve at the precinct or patrols, while 32 hours were lumped as unsupervised home resting hours that could be canceled without notice. Departments within the forces that had been incorporated into the NYPD included the New York Police [which formed the bulk of NYPD], Brooklyn Police Department, Brooklyn Bridge Police, Long Island City Police Department, the Park Police [also known as Central Park] and the Telegraph Bureau. The Telegraph Bureau is the forerunner of the present day Communications Division. Over the time, these departments and units expanded and divided as they became more specialized, to the point that presently, NYPD has more than 300 units. In a closely related wavelength, the framers of the Charter punctiliously included language in the document to ensure that no political party could muster control of this police department for its own purpose. John McCullagh served as first commissioner of NYPD. At the time, the NYPD has grown to incorporate several departments and special units such as anti-organized crime unit, Emergency Service Unit, harbor patrol, K-9, bomb disposal unit, air support, counterterrorism, air support, anti-gang, criminal intelligence, anti-narcotics, public housing unit and public transportation unit. The New York City Housing Authority Police Department and the New York City Transit Police were made part of the NYPD in 1995 (Vitale, 290-92). The Demographics That Informs NYPD’s Services According to Weiss, the size of New York bespeaks the size of NYPD’s duties and roles. This is because NYPD does not only serve New York City, but also the larger geopolitical expanse which is New York as a state. This means that NYPD has to serve 19,651,127 people, according to 2013 estimates. Like most states in the United States, this population that NYPD serves is highly multicultural, consisting of white Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans and immigrants. It is therefore not fortuitous that the NYPD is the largest Police Department in the US and the nation’s leading department in law enforcement and security operations (Weiss, 1930). NYPD’s Recruitment Practices NYPD has divided its recruitment process into eight stages and processes. NYPD conducts its recruitment drives every year and every recruitment process begins when an individual submits his application for a job with the NYPD, meaning that NYPD does not carry out forceful conscription. The Applicant Processing Division is the first step of the recruitment process and it helps identify the most qualified candidates for a specific portfolio, whether that portfolio is civilian or uniform. The applicant is investigated thoroughly at this stage and a background check is done to this effect. It is therefore the mandate of the Applicant Processing Division to annually investigate thousands of candidates, so that only the most qualified are recruited. The stage above is followed by the Pre-hire Interview stage. In this sage, candidates are subjected to an interview and candidates who have passed the Applicant Processing Division may be disqualified at this stage. The third step of NYPD’s interview is the Medical Exam stage, where candidates are examined for physical fitness. The fourth step is the Written Psych stage which examines the candidate’s psychological soundness. However, this stage is different from the Oral Psych stage which is the sixth stage. Unlike the Written Psych stage which tests the candidate’s psychological state through written means, the Oral Psych stage conducts this exercise verbally. The penultimate stage in this recruitment process is that of Character Investigation. In this stage, the applicant’s character is examined, in light of his past conduct. Government records may be scrutinized to establish compliance with state, federal and municipal laws. The final stage, known as Additional Requirements, may involve looking at secondary issues that may appear peripheral to the job that has been applied, at the façade. Some of these factors may be the admissibility of the applicant’s citizenship, marital status and interpersonal skills. These factors may be thoroughly visited if it is established that any of them are a reality in the candidate’s life and has the potential to slight his performance in office. The eight processes above are succeeded by physical and professional training. Recruits may be taken to police academy for this purpose (White, 16, 17 & 19). Possible Personal Initiatives as Police Officer When one looks at corruption haphazardly as the pocketing of a bribe, it is easy to give a police department a clean bill of health. However, a proper definition of corporate or institutional corruption as the unsanctioned and unlawful use of office resources and values for personal gain compels the sensible to acknowledge that to a degree, corruption exists virtually in all police departments, the world over. The NYPD is therefore not an exception. Although there are damning reports and news articles that reprimand the NYPD for being corrupt, yet it is also true that NYPD’s level of corruption is marginal and has not yet reached the institutional level. This gives a sign of hope, in that it allows me the chance to stand my ground to abide by my constitutionally stipulated work ethics and to resist the onslaughts of temptations of bribery and professional misconduct. Bribery, professional and personal misconduct are some forms of corruption that beset the efficiency and integrity of the NYPD, yet all these vices can be eradicated at a personal level. For instance, Peter Ciollo incident of attempted rape, intoxicating a child, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of his child victim and the regular misuse of stops and frisks are some of professional and personal misconduct which severely mar the image of NYPD. All these cases can be avoided through personal resolution and commitment. Making a personal resolution and commitment not to engage in professional misconduct is the first and most important step in the war on institutional corruption since change begins at the individual level. I may also report any form of professional misconduct that I may have witnessed at my department immediately to my chief of department. This will ensure that professional misconduct is not abetted and that those that engage in corrupt activities are brought to book. What To Do about Corruption as the NYPD’s Commissioner While a single simple NYPD officer may do very little about corruption because of a significantly stifled sphere of influence, there is a lot the NYPD Commissioner can do [because of a larger sphere of influence]. First, it will be incumbent upon me as the Commissioner to ensure that NYPD’s rank and file is totally informed on the law. Just as Sugarman recommends, this will portend, having NYPD officers attend regular refresher courses, so that there can be a clear demarcation of the rights of the citizen and an apprehended suspect and the mandate the law places on police officers. This especially needful since NYPD officers have regularly abused stops and frisks and thereby violating the Fourth Amendments. The same applies to the violation of suspects’ Miranda Rights in NYPD officer’s custody. In this course, officers are also to be acquainted with specific penalties that may be prescribed to each specific act of breach of office (Sugarman, 176-77). Again, it will be important for me as the Commissioner to set stage for the reviewing of NYPD’s salaries and remunerations, as a way of curtailing bribery within the force’s rank and file. This measure is also to be injected with effective talent management programs whereby officers who have shown commitment to NYPD’s cause, values and goals by working hard and being consistently integral. These pay raises are to be accompanied by promotions and the bestowing with badges of honor. Works Cited Sugarman, Barry. “Organizational learning and reform at the New York City Police Department.” The journal of applied behavioral science, 46.2 (2010): 157 – 185. Print Vitale, A. S. “From negotiated management to command and control: How the New York Police Department polices protests.” Policing & Society, 15.3 (2005): 283 – 304. Print Weiss, R. P. “Jammed up: bad cops, police misconduct, and the New York City Police Department.” Choice, 50.10 (2013): 1930. Print White, Michael D. “The New York City Police Department, its Crime Control Strategies and Organizational Changes, 1970-2009.” Justice Quarterly, 09 (2012): 1 – 22. Print Read More