NYPD Eases up on Petty Crimes, Focuses on Major Offenses

NEW YORK, NY — Some petty crime is apparently too petty for the NYPD.

The department is breaking from its highly successful model of attacking all minor crime to focus more on major offenses and counterterrorism, The Post has learned.

The deviation has caused a dramatic dip in petty busts, with tens of thousands fewer summonses issued, NYPD sources said.

Cops issued 6 percent fewer summonses for speeding, running red lights and other moving-traffic violations in 2008 compared to 2007, and 7.1 percent fewer summonses for misdemeanors like drinking in public, loitering and public urination.

The decline highlights the department’s struggle to maintain the “broken windows” theory of crime prevention – that fixing problems such as a broken window right away will prevent bigger problems.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani modeled his “zero tolerance” policy in part on that theory, leading to widespread reductions in minor and major crimes.

The broken-windows theory helped bring about the NYPD’s CompStat program, the city’s crime analysis and accountability system. CompStat keeps track of crime in each neighborhood – even though smaller crimes are not monitored in the program.

Until last year, the NYPD assigned a handful of cops in each precinct known as summons officers to focus on minor infractions like people running red lights, speeding and illegally parking, a high-ranking NYPD officer said.

“That was abandoned,” the officer said. “The theory is that they spread the work out to everybody.”

Some police brass point out that suspects involved in major crimes often are caught through minor arrests.

“Some great arrests were made on car stops,” said another knowledgeable police source, one of many cops who believe the strategy shift could be damaging.

Officially, the Police Department says there is no simple explanation for why cops are issuing fewer summonses.

“Tickets are issued when they are observed,” said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. “What is observed can fluctuate from year to year.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said the NYPD is trying to do more with fewer officers. There were 35,959 cops in 2008, up slightly from 35,907 in 2007. But the NYPD force has shrunk by 10 percent since the 2001 peak of 40,800.

Budget woes have already led Mayor Bloomberg to cancel a class of 1,000 cadets that were to begin training this month.

The new policy of insisting that all officers are responsible for writing tickets for traffic violations and minor offenses may have the unforeseen effect of leaving nobody accountable, the high-ranking NYPD officer said.

“It’s great in theory, but the numbers are signaling a different story,” the officer added.

In 2008, cops handed out 61,589 fewer tickets to motorists for such moving violations as blowing through red lights or speeding – a drop of 169 summonses a day.

They also issued 38,372 fewer criminal summonses – an average 105 fewer each day – for petty offenses like urinating, drinking in public, trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Maki Haberfeld, a police-science professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agreed that cops won’t pay attention to petty crime unless they’re specifically ordered to do so.

“Nobody wants to become a police officer to deal with minor traffic violations or issue summonses to people urinating in public,” he said.

If the NYPD wants to focus on minor offenses, Haberfeld said, officers should be assigned to zero in on them – maybe for short periods at a time.

Cops issued nearly twice as many summonses for traffic violations than for minor crimes, NYPD data shows – with 969,921 tickets for moving-traffic violations last year, compared to 501,143 tickets for petty crimes.

Despite the reduction in summonses for minor offenses, overall crime declined last year for the 18th consecutive year, although murders and robberies were up.