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Q&A
New quality of life division and increased summons issuance
1:00:42
ยท
4 min
Commissioner Jessica Tisch explains the creation of a new quality of life division and its approach to addressing quality of life complaints.
- Proposal to create a quality of life division to make precinct commanders responsible for local issues
- Shift from centralized Community Response Team (CRT) to precinct-level responsibility
- Implementation of metrics and accountability for responsiveness to 311 complaints
- Focus on addressing varied quality of life issues specific to each precinct
- Discussion of specialized training for officers, including addressing abandoned vehicles
Yusef Salaam
1:00:42
I'm gonna shift to quality of life commissioner and summons.
1:00:47
Commissioner Nattish, you recently announced a new quality of life division to deal with quality of life complaints.
1:00:53
This administration has been targeting quality of life complaints over the past few years.
1:00:57
In fiscal year twenty twenty two, the department issued approximately 67,000 quality of life summons.
1:01:03
And in fiscal year twenty twenty four, the department issued approximately 180,000 summons.
1:01:09
What is the budgeted what is the budget and headcount for quality of life for the quality of life division?
1:01:15
And what other criteria will an officer need to be selected for that division?
Jessica Tisch
1:01:22
So over the past several years, quality of life enforcement at the NYPD has been led by a unit called CRT, or Community Response Team, that we are proposing to create a quality of life division at the NYPD so that we can make precinct commanders and the resources that they control responsible for quality of life complaints in their precincts rather than this other solely relying on this centralized or more centralized unit to address quality of life concerns.
1:02:03
And the rationale there is quality of life issues vary from precinct to precinct.
1:02:09
In one command it might be abandoned vehicles.
1:02:15
In another command it might be unruly vending.
1:02:21
And no one knows the issues in the commands better than the commanding officers.
1:02:27
The other idea there is to put some metrics and accountability around responsiveness to three eleven complaints.
1:02:36
As I mentioned in my testimony over the past six years, three eleven complaints to the NYPD have doubled around these issues.
1:02:48
And while we do a great job or historically have done a great job through the Comstat process of holding our commanding officers responsible for crime and in particular the major crime, the seven major crimes, we're not doing that right now with quality of life issues.
1:03:04
So the idea there is to create a chief of quality of life, a quality of life division to centralize a number, to put a number of units that are now scattered throughout department under that quality of life division.
1:03:18
But really the vast majority of the workforce that will be dealing with or addressing quality of life issues under this model will be at the precinct level under the direct control and supervision of the precinct commanders.
1:03:36
This is not so much a budget change as a reorganization and reemphasis and reprioritization around these issues.
Yusef Salaam
1:03:56
Is there is the specialized training that the officers who selected for this will receive?
Jessica Tisch
1:04:04
That's still being worked out, but I can give you an example.
1:04:10
When I was the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, we had a number of uniformed police officers transferred over to DSNY to help address problems associated with vehicles abandoned or left inappropriately on our streets.
1:04:28
Historically some of them had been rotos that the NYPD would address and others were derelict that the Department of Sanitation would address.
1:04:38
And when you put the sanitation supervisors with the NYPD cops, didn't matter whether it was derelict or roto.
1:04:47
Between the two of them they could address any issue.
1:04:50
But through that work, we learned in a lot of detail how complicated our roto policies and procedures are.
1:05:01
And there are good reasons why they are but it's not as straightforward as one would imagine.
1:05:07
So among the specialized training as an example is teaching those officers how to address rotoes and work with roto vendors to remove cars quickly off of the streets.
1:05:24
And when people wonder why vehicles are left on our streets in such high numbers.
1:05:31
Among the reasons is it is difficult for our officers absent this extra training to address those concerns.