Ray Kelly Puts NYPD Quota Demands in Writing; Rank And File Not Happy [Updated]
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has issued an intriguing new order to the NYPD which appears to finally put the unwritten quota policy into writing, adds yet another layer of paperwork to the street cop's job, and brings department micromanaging to a new level of insanity.
Titled "Police Officer Performance Objectives," the document states, "Department managers can and must set performance goals." Their emphasis, not ours. Now, if that doesn't sound like an express demand for precinct commanders to have quotas, we don't know what does.
Update: The Patrolmans Benevolent Association says their lawyers are reviewing the order.
And Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said this: "Labeling quotas as 'goals' does nothing to change the fact that police officers are being forced to make arrests, issue summonses, and do stop and frisks simply to make the numbers. Not only is this wrong and illegal, but it completely undermines the integrity of policing."
The exhausting five-page memo, obtained by the Voice, is already generating an outcry among the rank-and-file. "The job is essentially saying fuck you to the quota bill," one cop writes.
That's a reference to the fact that the state Legislature passed a law last year that bans police departments from having quotas for tickets, arrests, and stop and frisks.
"A good boss knows his cops, their strengths, their weakness and how to get blood from the stones.... I didn't need no stinkin' form to get the job done," another writes.
The order states that "proactive enforcement activities" include "summonses, the stopping and questioning of suspicious individuals, and the arrests of criminals."
A new document called the Command Conditions Report will track the "activity" of every officer in the command--i.e., arrests, summonses, stop and frisks--which will be forwarded to borough command on a weekly basis.
Each police officer in the department will have to do a daily report on their "activity."
This is called the "Police Officer's Monthly Conditions Impact Measurement Report." That document then gets forwarded up the chain via computer, which means that Kelly will now be able look at what every cop in the city is doing. Cops have to carry it around and show it to any supervisor who asks for it. And they are required to have a weekly meeting about their work with their boss.
The report has two boxes for bosses to check about the officer's work: "effective or ineffective."
And get this, the order says the report "must be neatly folded as to minimize any tears." Wow, the bureaucrats at One Police Plaza, sometimes known as the "Puzzle Palace," must be going nuts!
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