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Original document was submitted as an honors thesis requirement. Copyright is held by the author.

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Thesis

Abstract

This study examines the various community policing initiatives, or lack of community policing initiatives, within the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from 1984 to present. Community policing is a policing model that is currently in the forefront of the criminal justice field due to strained relationships between many communities and the police. The community policing initiatives examined in this study are organized as follows: the Community Patrol Officer Program (C-POP) under Police Commissioner Ward (1984-1989); the Safe Streets, Safe City Program under Police Commissioner Brown (1989-1992), which established community policing as the dominant operational philosophy in the NYPD; Broken Windows data-driven policing under Police Commissioner Bratton (1994-1996), which ended community policing as the dominant operational philosophy; the Lack of Emphasis on Community Policing under Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly (2002-2014); the Re-emergence of Community Policing under Police Commissioner Bratton’s second term (2014-2016); and currently the Neighborhood Coordination Officer Program (NCO) under Police Commissioner O'Neill (2016-present). These initiatives were analyzed as an evolutionary process in order to determine how community policing models have changed in the NYPD as well as attempt to identify the factors driving the change in policing styles. This study includes research of prior community policing initiatives as well as first hand observations of current community policing initiatives within the NYPD. It was ultimately determined that numerous factors influenced the various community policing initiatives. Surprisingly, even though addressing the needs of the community is often cited as the sole or even primary goal of community policing programs, it was determined that this was not necessarily the case across NYPD policing initiatives examined in this study. This research only examines the evolution of community policing initiatives in the NYPD, and perhaps can act as a springboard for future studies on the effectiveness of NYPD community policing practices in terms of community satisfaction.

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