New York public employees cannot strike, so this is the labor action available to them.
The union should think carefully though. If life just goes on without the nanny-state tickets and other revenue generators, the thought process may change. Maybe more fare jumping and double-parking would be ok, and we can live with that -- but with 10,000 fewer policemen.
I agree that this is not about the most serious infractions (though it should be noted that even arrests for violent crimes are down, just not so drastically). But we're not just talking about "nanny-state tickets" either. We're talking about plummeting arrests or tickets for robbery, fare-evasion, DWI, parking violations, and moving violations (speeding, running red lights, etc.), among other things. I don't see any future where the citizens of New York decide that enforcing traffic laws was just a failed social experiment. I think we're just seeing the entirely predictable lag between decreased (or nonexistent) enforcement, and the social consequences.
Maybe. Many pundits have been talking about NYPD's use of COMSTAT, stop-and-frisk and fighting the "broken windows" syndrome as being leading causes of the drop in crime in NYC. On closer inspection the crime appears to have been falling anyway for a number of possible reasons, some as simple as a change in demographics.
Now we have perhaps something of a controlled experiment going on regarding the alleged root cause of the drop in crime in NYC (and perhaps nationwide).
The effectiveness of cost-cutting in the NYPD would be multiplied if they started with the shiny toys first. Cut the number of SWAT teams, sell off the armored division's tanks, to Ukraine perhaps, and cut the spies and surveillance gear first, and you'll be able to keep a lot more of the useful police who might then be able to focus on boosting their solution rates for crimes people care about.
I generally agree with the sentiment that police are overbuying toys, but if there is any city where the police are justified in having that kind of stuff, it's New York. The terrorists are not going to attack St Louis Missouri, but they have attacked New York multiple times.
I say this having just seen the NYPD bomb squad show up to investigate a bag outside my apartment this morning.
Imagine for a second an attack in which a group of people with guns attack a news room and kill a bunch of people. I know that would be hard to believe, but something like that happened literally 12 hours ago in a city on the same level as NYC. In that case, I'd like the police to have armored cars, bullet proof vests, and assault rifles.
Or maybe you want to look at the Boston Marathon bombing that ended in a shoot out with a SWAT team.
Yes, terrorism is statistically insignificant compared to car crashes or heart disease in terms of deaths. Yes, police over use their equipment. To say that NYC or other cities like it don't have an actual need for this kind of equipment sometimes is just silly.
> Or maybe you want to look at the Boston Marathon bombing that ended in a shoot out with a SWAT team
In that case, poorly coordinated, heavily-armed police fired hundreds of rounds into a neighborhood of primarily wood-frame houses in Watertown, Massachusetts. That's a good case for disarming all the cops involved in that incident.
My point is not "NYC doesn't need them". It's "terrorism isn't much of an argument for them". Bank robberies and hostage situations are far more likely situations to need such a thing.
> sell off the armored division's tanks, to Ukraine perhaps
People like to throw this line around... but I've yet to see an actual tank in the hands of a police department anywhere in the US. What I have seen are a lot of Armored Personnel Carriers (APC), which have no weaponry and are basically just heavily armored trucks designed specifically to protect the personnel inside (from riot, projectiles, bullets, explosions, etc).
With that said, I have no issue with a police department using an APC in a situation where bodily harm may come to them (SWAT situation, riot situation, terrorist situation, bomb situation, etc).
And "riot" is not to be confused with "peaceful protest". Riots are bad; people and property get damaged.
Part of what was said was that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear. With little oversight on how and when it is used. Allegedly.
Personally, I think the problem is when there us no cost benefit analysis. What's the cost in terms of maintenence as well as public perception and trust.
> that the police (in Ferguson) seemed ill trained to use this fancy gear
I do realize you put the disclaimer "seemed", but I don't see any evidence that the police in Ferguson (or anywhere) were ill trained to drive an APC or use riot gear (gas masks included). APC's have been used by police departments for a long long time, just only they were purchasing them back then and now the military is giving them their old ones (as apposed to just scrapping them since they were bought and paid for with tax payer's money).
Ferguson was special, there were "riots" going on for a while (stores being raided, projectiles rockets and fireworks fired at police, even guns being shot). There were both peaceful protests happening simultaneously with full on riots.
In terms of 'trained', it seems like their attitude towards crowd control was to out-macho the crowd, which can only really escalate the situation. Look at that picture of the dude on top of the APC brandishing the mounted gun. He's completely exposed, he's not in a combat position, he's in an intimidation position.
I was just sharing what I read about what people have said about police tactics. I lack the expertise to evaluate the factually of them. I thought the comment about the mere presence of riot control can escalate the situation was pretty damning.
I do believe that there mostly isn't enough cost benefit analysis going on, just more stuff is better.
Most of the shiny toys' cost (capex, training, maintenance) is not paid by the NYPD, but through grants/subsidies from the Department of Homeland Security's anti-terrorism programs.
So, cutting that would be great, but wouldn't do much for NYPD's bottom line.
Based on that assumption (that I also made when the NYT realsead their 1033 foia data) when I made a drill down for the top line items (based on foia submitted prices) for each county and associated them with the companies for those products[0], that they added to their wiki[1]. It's seems that BAE comes out on top if you also assume that the cost of the equipment by some measure is proportional to the opex (which we already assume could be greater than the capex). Here are the top ten with more listed in [0]:
~ BAE SYSTEMS TACTICAL VEHICLE SYSTEMS : $106,955,000.00, items: [u'2355-01-555-0908', u'2355-01-590-1660']
~ NAVISTAR DEFENSE LLC : $60,563,580.00, items: [u'2355-01-553-4634', u'4210-01-568-7116', u'2355-01-602-3357']
~ U S ARMY TANK AUTOMOTIVE COMMAND : $45,291,296.05, items: [u'2320-01-107-7155', u'2320-01-488-6962', u'1940-01-526-0770', u'2320-01-371-9577', u'2320-01-346-9317', u'2320-01-447-3892', u'2320-01-128-9551', u'2355-01-123-1606', u'2350-01-068-4089', u'2320-01-230-0300', u'2320-01-107-7153', u'2320-01-455-9593', u'2320-01-146-7193', u'2320-01-206-4079', u'2320-01-047-8750', u'2320-01-107-7156', u'2320-01-047-8754', u'2330-01-091-9005', u'2320-01-380-8604', u'2320-00-077-1632', u'2320-01-100-7672', u'2320-01-146-7191', u'2320-01-389-7558', u'2320-01-523-1314', u'2320-01-146-7188', u'2320-01-523-1127', u'2320-00-077-1631', u'2350-01-068-4077', u'2310-01-146-7194', u'2320-01-371-9584', u'2320-01-371-9583', u'2320-01-456-1282', u'2320-01-272-5028', u'2320-01-492-8215', u'2320-01-097-0249', u'2320-01-380-8233', u'2320-01-380-8213', u'2320-01-128-9552', u'2320-01-412-0143', u'2320-01-230-0303', u'2350-01-069-6931', u'3810-01-205-2716', u'8145-01-413-8521', u'2320-01-206-4078', u'2350-01-338-3116', u'2320-01-499-0015', u'2320-01-542-8463', u'2330-01-155-0048', u'2420-01-205-8636', u'2310-01-111-2275', u'2320-01-447-6343', u'5180-01-361-6874', u'2320-01-372-3933', u'2320-01-146-7190', u'2320-01-354-3384', u'2355-00-168-2620', u'2320-01-146-7189', u'2320-01-354-4528', u'2320-01-380-8229', u'2350-01-096-9356', u'2320-01-097-0260', u'2320-01-447-3891', u'2310-01-111-2274', u'2320-01-099-6426', u'2320-01-418-7400']
~ BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON INC. : $21,933,282.00, items: [u'1520-01-020-4216', u'1520-00-087-7637', u'1520-00-169-7137', u'1520-01-043-4949', u'1520-00-133-9286']
~ SHORT BROS /USA/ INC : $10,680,000.00, items: [u'1510-01-418-1848']
~ NAVAL AIR WARFARE CTR : $10,000,000.00, items: [u'5820-01-435-2596']
~ U S ARMY TANK AUTOMOTIVE COMMAND AMSTA-IM-MM U.S: $8,581,181.73, items: [u'2320-01-050-2084', u'2320-01-230-0305', u'2320-01-206-4088', u'2320-00-077-1617', u'2320-01-047-8756', u'2320-01-230-0304', u'2320-01-354-3385', u'2320-01-125-2640', u'2320-00-926-0873', u'2320-00-077-1616', u'2320-01-230-0308', u'2320-01-230-0307', u'2320-01-206-4087', u'2320-01-047-8769', u'2320-01-230-0302', u'2320-01-206-4077', u'2320-01-431-1163', u'3805-01-028-4389', u'4910-00-735-6056', u'2320-01-047-8753', u'2320-01-133-5368']
~ HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC. : $8,574,024.50, items: [u'1270-01-384-1108']
~ HALTER MARINE INC. : $5,110,617.00, items: [u'1940-01-549-9765']
~ WARNER ROBINS AIR LOGISTICS CENTER : $4,764,652.00, items: [u'3805-00-234-9778', u'1005-01-073-2368', u'2320-01-563-7052', u'3825-01-096-5554', u'2320-01-044-7133', u'6115-01-349-1536']
The union should think carefully though. If life just goes on without the nanny-state tickets and other revenue generators, the thought process may change. Maybe more fare jumping and double-parking would be ok, and we can live with that -- but with 10,000 fewer policemen.
10,000 * $100,000 = less need for ticket revenue.