The Last Neighborhood Cops: The Rise and Fall of Community Policing in New York Public Housing (Critical Issues in Crime and Society)

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In recent years, community policing has transformed American law enforcement by promising to build trust between citizens and officers. Today, three-quarters of American police departments claim to embrace the strategy. But decades before the phrase was coined, the New York City Housing Authority Police Department (HAPD) had pioneered community-based crime-fighting strategies. 

The Last Neighborhood Cops reveals the forgotten history of the residents and cops who forged community policing in the public housing complexes of New York City during the second half of the twentieth century. Through a combination of poignant storytelling and historical analysis, Fritz Umbach draws on buried and confidential police records and voices of retired officers and older residents to help explore the rise and fall of the HAPD ��s community-based strategy, while questioning its tactical effectiveness. The result is a unique perspective on contemporary debates of community policing and historical developments chronicling the influence of poor and working-class populations on public policy making.

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The Last Neighborhood Cops: The Rise and Fall of Community Policing in New York Public Housing (Critical Issues in Crime and Society) Review

This is a tremendous book detailing the history of the NYC Housing Police and their relationship to the tenants of the public housing developments. He relates the beginning of the Police from their origins as "Special Patrolmen" assigned to the projects up to their eventual dissolution in the merger with NYC Police in 1995.

The police started as neighborhood cops, many from the community they served; they knew their tenants personally, and saw their main job as enforcing Authority regulations improving the quality of life of these residents. They worked with managers and tenants to solve problems before they escalated. Errant youngsters were brought to parents rather than were arrested, fostering a relationship that kept behavior in check and enforced community norms. This was community policing, even before it was so named. What changed this?

The author lists several reasons:

1) Court decisions brought by OEO lawyers limited the right of the Authority to enforce standards and to maintain strict eligibity requirements for residency. This disrupted the social cohesion in the developments, much to the tenants dismay.
2) Economic conditions caused many residents to start "at home" businesses and double up with unauthorized residents, causing them to shy away from the Housing police whom they feared would report them.
3) The Police desire for promotional opportunities that led to pressure for precinct style policing.
4) The replacement of police walking beats with car patrols due to manpower losses. This reduced contact with their tenants.

There were also demographic changes caused by an influx of welfare families and homeless, increasing the social pathologies that they brought with them. Also the assignment of new Housing Police from a regular Police list, brought an influx of officers who didn't understand the projects. There were many other conditions that contributed to this situation.

I myself worked for the Housing Authority from 1969 - 2002, twelve years of which (1981-1993) I worked for the Housing Police, supervising a Unit that prepared the statistical reports and crime analysis for the Department. I have never met men who worked from the ranks to be become C.O.'s that were so friendly to Tenants and civilians as these old timers. Men like Joe Keeney, Marvin Krivitsky, Vincent Pizzo were a breath of fresh air, as they eschewed the police mentality that considered civilans as either "perps or pests".

I just want to say that the PSA's were not "Public Saftey Areas", but rather "Police Service Areas". The author also alludes to the fact that the UCR (Uniform Crime Reports) might have made the projects look worse than they really were because the real population was 20-30% larger than the official number. This was because of doubled up residents. This is true, but the UCR reports were really meant to compare large jurisdictions. A UCR index for a really small development(100-200 residents) was useless since it would multiply index crimes per 1000 of population. Also, I am not sure if the author was aware, but all crimes that occurred on the sidewalks around the projects, were assigned to HAPD jurisdiction, but for UCR purposes, they were DELETED from the UCR reports. A homicide, robbery or any other crime committed on the sidewalks was not counted in the official UCR report. This was a compromise made between the NYCPD and the HAPD over jurisdiction.

Alas, these and other pressures led to the merger with NYC. At least with this book, Prof. Umbach will keep the story alive of NYC HAPD, who really lived up to their motto - "SECOND TO NONE".

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