City Talk; Eli Silverman, Prof. Emeritus, John Jay College; Graham Rayman, Village Voice

Hello, I'm Doug Musio. This is City Talk. Attempted rapes downgraded to misdemeanors, attempted robberies recorded as lost property, quotas, stop and frisk, calm stat, faulty data, twains, dries, dimlyz, and statistics. Here to talk about NYPD policy, police statistics, and lies in damn lies are Eli Silverman and Graham Raymond. Eli is Professor Emeritus at CUNY's John J. College of Criminal Justice. He's the author of NYPD Battles, Crime, Innovative Strategies, and Policing,

the first in-depth study of the transformation of the NYPD, and he's also published numerous studies of management innovations in policing. He and John Eternal of Malloy College are currently writing a book, Calm Stat Unveiled the Naked Truth, which includes the results of a survey that created quite a star-last winter. Graham Raymond is the staff writer for the village voice. He has written about diverse subjects such as Brazilian Diamond Smuggling, the city's jail, elite youth basketball, and most recently a five-point series about the NYPD. He was previously a reporter for news day where he covered a range of beats and subject matter. Welcome Eli, welcome Graham. Thank you. You two guys are certainly troublemakers. I mean, your articles, your blog, your studies, I mean, you must not be very popular in the city administration or down at one police plaza.

I mean, what's been the reaction to your stuff? Well, I don't think I'm on Paul Brown's Christmas list. No, I would think not. Does he ever return your phone calls? No, no, not really. Or emails. What's the strategy? I mean, they figure they ignore you, you go away. I don't know what the strategy is. I mean, you know, all I was trying to do is sort of reach behind the curtain or pull the curtain back a little bit to give people a sense of what it's like to work in a modern day. NYPD precinct and what the what the stresses are, what the pressures are, and how it really works, how the sausage is made in essence, and there were some a lot of interesting spin-off things from that, but I don't know what his strategy is. Well, I mean, you've got five-point series. You've got numerous blogs, post things in other articles. They're trying to ignore you. I have been successful. I mean, has this reporting led to significant changes and where? It depends on how you define it.

The precinct commander has been transferred. Five, he and five officers from the precinct have been charged with manipulating crime statistics, which I think is a very narrow viewing of what was going on there. I think they minimized. They probably could have done more, but I think they minimized it. There was a lot of conversation in the community about this stuff. I think the Kelly's relationship with the clergy in Brooklyn was very strained, and in the last two months he's actually done things publicly for the first time in my memory to try to repair that relationship. Okay, you got, you were quoted in one of Graham's pieces as talking about this tape scandal as a giant oil spill, describe the meaning of the metaphor. The meaning of the metaphor is BP, for example, said the oil spill was limited to a specific area. That's the line also of the police department.

That Graham's revelations of Adrian Skull, schoolcrafts, tapes. The first lady is simply an isolated. That's one of their strategies. Their strategies is to negate anything that diminishes their story. They are narrative, and their narrative is essentially that they're perfect and that everything they've done is work perfectly, and it's restored stability and calm to the whole New York City, and anything that attracts from that narrative has to be ignored or be condemned or be trivialized. So, what Graham talked about, the reaction of more yellow as far as I'm concerned. Who is the CEO of who is a commanding officer of that precinct? As far as I'm concerned, and my colleague John Atterno, who we've worked closely together with, he simply was a scapegoat. Because what they say is, well, there's a little rotten notion in the apple. The reality is that all this emanates from the top, and whether it's more yellow or someone else,

they feel the pressure to make these crimes that go down, and that is enforced in these comes that meetings. So, the pressure is so strong, and schoolcraft, and he's not the only one. Other tapes have come up, Palenko. There are the numerous officers who have come out and spoken to me, and I'm sure to Graham, and in fact, I even say to them, why don't you register your complaint on schoolcraft's blog that his lawyers instituted, and they tell me, we're afraid. They say, I said it's anonymous. They say, we're afraid. They may be able to track us down. There is a reign of terror here, because this oil spill is so big, and the real shame of the whole story is that this oil spill is next to a giant iceberg. And the only thing that's being revealed about this iceberg are fortunately Graham's reports and a few others. But this is a giant

earth iceberg below that. That's not being revealed. And so, the press, my complaint with the presses, there's a story that's not being told, and the New York Police Department will do anything it can to negate any story. And to condemn, like we were, we've been repeatedly condemned, because we say, well, we have a report from NYU that contradicts Turner and Silverman. Well, the reality is that was commissioned by the Police Department, that report says that was based on interviews with senior commanders, and we can't independently order the integrity of the statistics, and we have come up with two studies that have been reviewed by peers. Our peers in the academic community, so we feel that all reports are not equal. Okay, now, so you've got your damning tapes and series of news stories and blogs. You've got the survey that you released in February that created

this huge reaction. It seems as if that that has become the dominant narrative that there's no discussion here. It's like it's off the table. Why? What is it about the NYPD, or Ray Kelly, or Mike Bloomberg, that leads to this, you know, conspiracy of silence as you describe it? Let's just put it just a little bit of context. Adrian Skollcraft is the police officer in the 81st precinct. He secretly, at some personal risk, he secretly wore a tape recorder on the job, a little digital tape recorder in his pocket for over a year and a half, and he gave me access to those tapes. I only use the roll call tapes because the roll call is a meeting every morning. I only use those because those are a static, measurable, sort of day-to-day piece of documentation. The other stuff is just sort of street noise and chatter and stuff that you're not

really sure what the context is. The roll calls are very clear. Okay, so to answer your question, I think it's clearly Ray Kelly is a highly respected person in this city government, and he's probably very popular. Very popular. He's almost, he might be by now the longest-serving police commissioner in history or close to it. And since it's the, being a police commissioner, it's such a political position, you know, that's a significant fact. I mean, almost, what is it almost eight years now, or almost nine years? So, and I think anti-terror is a major focus, and he's done a lot with his anti-terror programs or tried to create a perception that he's done a lot. Yeah, I mean, so these are all powerful forces. Okay. And the other thing is that maybe there's a lack of understanding of what, how this kind of stuff, the downgrading of crimes and the quota system affects the public. Go ahead. And the quotas affect the public in that people who

normally would have gotten a warning, let's say for going a little, rolling through a stop sign or something like that, we'll now get a ticket, particularly at the end of the month when the officers need the tickets. So that's $115, which is a lot of money, at least $115. There's a lot of money for a regular person as a regular salary, you know, and so that's one part of it. And the second on the downgrading of the crimes, what's happening is you're, is someone has been victimized in a crime and then they're being victimized again by having the cops question over and over again. Oh, did that really happen? Are you sure you want to do this? And they're, so they're creating sort of devils in the details sequence where you're, you're just trying to report a crime, but suddenly now your integrity is under question. You're, you're, you're being called back repeatedly by people of the precinct asking you if you really, do you really want to report this? Do you really want to, this is going to be a big pain if you do it? So those are two real world

effects. Explain the reasons for this imperative to reach quotas and to downgrade stats. The, for a long time, the city has made the argument that we can drive down crime and has built a story, a success story. And I, I plead guilty and contributing to the promulgation of that story. And I think it's been a true story, but now they're stuck in the story. And they made the point that they, regardless of economic conditions, regardless of any socio economic conditions, regardless of the number of police, they said repeatedly, we can drive down crime. And they, all the figures have driven crime down. So they built a public expectation and no commissioner, no mayor, now will want to be on his or her watch to have crime go up. It, it's very interesting in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, which talked about a spike in

violent crime this year, the police department in the beginning of the article attributed to natural fluctuations in crime. But since, since they're in the early 1990s, they were immune to these fluctuations. So they've now created a narrative, a story that does not tolerate anything that does that. Plus the fact in my opinion, the media with very few exceptions and TV, including the Jim Hoffer's done some remarkable things on ABC. But in general, they have bought into that argument. And it's very difficult now to uncover the stuff that now shows, for example, that non index crimes have gone up. The ones that can be that, that receptacle of downgrading. It's, and no one's really explored in detail how that went up before 2001. Right. And then also the New York Times in a piece that Ray Rivera and Al Baker did on

the alusiveness on the day of the data on lower level crimes. I mean, clearly there are, there are lies, them lies in statistics. And there were certain data that even are uncollected or not. It's not. It's not shared. It's, it's, it's, it's much broader than that. Right. Ray Kelly has systematically moved to limit areas where a public where information comes out. And it's from the, from the non index crime, that's just one example. You can't get the docket for the police department's trial room anymore. You can't get the transfers and reassignments. You can't, you can just go down the list. And so he's limiting information, you limit examination and you can't find problems from the outside. Right. Exactly. You cut you. So all roads must be channeled through his most trusted aid, and most trusted and valued aid. And anything that doesn't fall, anything that doesn't fall in that narrative does just ignore. And I just wanted to

say one more thing about the impact, which is, which is something that maybe I should talk about more about, which is that, uh, over the last five years, the number of stop and frisk has gone up, tremendous. Okay. And, and, uh, now the department will tell you that that is a valid law enforcement tool, and that's why they do it. But the reality is that in these comps that meetings, they're putting the comp, they're stopping frisk numbers up and they're saying, that's right. How, how many stop and frisk do you do last month? You know, so basically people, people, do workers are being stopped and frisk and under highly questionable, probably unconstitutional grounds because of quotas. So you're walking home, let's say you're a CUNY student, you're walking home in bedside. Right. Just walking home after school, you know, and tell me, students tell me this all the time. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a very common experience. And suddenly, it's a what, why you hear, what are you doing here, you know, give me your ID. And without any cause at all,

they're just, because most cops don't really understand the stop and frisk rules because they're very complicated. So they just, just kind of the shotgun approach, just stop everyone, check them. But sometimes they do this on the orders from the precinct commander as the tapes, the school cribs show them. That's what I'm trying to get to. Yeah. They were quotas for stop and frisk. And on the tapes, you'll hear a sergeant say, you know, just stop them. And it's no big deal, you know, or, or, stop them, question them, you know, or my favorite one is, listen, if you're over there, just, just, just stop some people to show them we're doing something out there. And when they say them, they don't mean the New Yorkers, they mean the precinct commanders, and they're supervised. Right. So this is, you know, I believe, so I believe that the reason the stop and frisk have gone up so sharply is specifically because they're being ordered because they're being ordered in these

concept meetings. No, not because of some criminal justice or law enforcement reasons. Yeah. Well, this is tyranny of the numbers in a sense. Right. Yeah. It's tyranny of the numbers of idolization of the numbers. And is a common theme, whether it's the stop and frisk, or whether it's a downgrading of the crime, it all emanates from the top. That's why it's silly for us to trot one person out and move him because that's not really Jen. It's that's not going to solve the problem. So there's a common theme that pushes all this. And this, there is, as Graham said, there's no, there's no transparency. You can't, you don't have transparency in a giant oil spill. There's no transparency. You love this metaphor. That's right. Because it's muddied. It's muddied and you can't penetrate it. The only ones who are able to penetrate it are those who are given access, who are confident will come out with the right report, whether it's an instant quote. Right. Right. Exactly. Or the Rand Institute or whoever.

If we commission it, but so far, everyone has been out to lunch. The City Council was not taking any initiative. The mayor clearly is defensive on this and we'll attack anyone who is attacked and attacked you guys. And still does. By the way, we not only has the press attacked us, but we, we had in the daily news, our second peer reviewed article was about, it was, we, we discussed it with a reporter. He was going to do a story on it. And then day, night before, he emailed us and I have the email saying the editor killed it, killed it. And then following weekend, Saturday or Sunday, the daily news did another anti-eternal civilman. And so there's what thick is the narrative. Any narrative has to have heroes and villains and has to have those who are deserving and undeserving. And I know what category we're in. Right. And then perhaps you deserve to be. Robert did a piece called The Shame of New York where we talked about a study that

another academic figure that up at Columbia that pointed out the, the disproportionate impact on blacks and Latinos, for example. And the fact that they met very productive as a law enforcement tool in terms of meaningful moving up the, up the ladder or rest. I mean, what, what, what's the story? Only about 6% of the numbers of increased dramatically as you point that from 400 and something thousand. Well, if you cast a wide net, there are going to be a lot of people who don't deserve to be in the net, but you'll have occasional net. That's, that's what's happened. The system has been perverted and turned on its head. And it's no longer a creative problem solving. It's let's go on the handy short run items and bringing in people. And if we catch a few bad guys, great. We don't care about the consequences. Okay. So we've got the situation where you've got this tyranny of the numbers. You've got this, this, this focus on, you know, improving the numbers. But you keep getting going back, Graham to the communities. Clearly what

you've got is in certain communities, increased levels of distrust of the police. And almost it seems, and I've, I've done some work in, in communities. And with the police department that it's almost like there's an occupying army. And the attitude is they're all criminals. So we can do things that we might not do in base side. Am I putting words in your mouth? In the 81st precinct, there's clearly a perception in parts of the precinct that it's an occupying army. But there's also, of course, there's the opposite view, which is there, there is also a fairly strong sort of thank goodness their, the police are here doing their jobs. Otherwise, this place. And we, and they probably say exact things. So I mean, the communities themselves have their intentions within it. And certainly the quality of life and safety is dramatically improved across neighborhoods. But yeah, I mean, but what, what, one of the people I interviewed

for, for the series, this sort of a fledgling music producer, who left the neighborhood, graduate from college, played, played a little bit of semi-propassive. And the neighborhood is what? Bed style. Okay. Okay. It's black. He's black. Yeah. And what you never mentioned, I don't think in the story. I don't think so. Oh, the blood. Well, he's photos. Yeah. Well, go ahead. Anyway, the point, the point is that I just thought what he said was good, which is that, that, you know, if they were a little bit more, if there was a little bit more outreach from the precinct, then they would probably get a lot more cooperation from the, from the public. That there was, there was very little sort of one-to-one interaction between the officers and the community, the officers were, were like driving by, you know, patrolling in their sort of closed world and the, they weren't really interacting in a positive manner. In fact, the only cop that, that he could remember talking to or having any positive interaction with with schoolcraft,

because schoolcraft actually did try to talk to the people and, you know, small talking, shoot the breeze and stuff, because he was assigned to a footpost right outside of this gentleman's building. So, it's very hard to have that kind of interaction when you're being driven to bring in the numbers. And that's what's happening. You know, policing, any study of policing said the essential ingredient, one of the things that makes a lowest level police officer so different from any other occupation, is that he or she has discretion. A great who to arrest, went to arrest, what to do, how to intervene is a great deal of discretion on the lowest level of the organization. But what this system now is being corrupted into is reducing that discretion. And because you now becoming automaton and you're losing the professionalism of the police. And not only that, the police now become less effective. Why? Because you have the first element of the

Comsthat mantra is accurate and timely intelligence. If your intelligence isn't accurate, if your data isn't accurate, you're not going to solve future crimes. Okay. I had mentioned to you guys that I had done a project here at CUNY for the PD between 98 and 2001 on cultural competency. It seemed then that safer and even Carrick were looking at communities while it's immediately post-LaWima, but they're trying to engage the police in the communities and the understanding of the communities. Are you suggesting that that may have changed over the last several years? No, no, I'm not. I Kelly has, does have relationships, has done a lot to build relationships. I mean, I remember when there was a period when safer, I think, wouldn't meet without Sharpton. And today, Sharpton is completely silent on police issues. And Kelly has, my understanding has has good relationships with a lot of the prominent

clergy. And his reactions to police community incidents has been substantially different from the past. That's the mayor's. But I guess, but he's way up here. He's way up in the stratosphere over a department with 50,000 people. And then down on the street level, wave, wave about as far from police headquarters as you can get is where it's really happening. Every commander I know a good commander know that they have to have good relations with the community. The problem is the pressure that they get reinforced by the Comstad weekly meetings to come up with the numbers because that's the most tangible thing. Right. And I don't report on what discussions I had with community leader X regularly. Who did the invention I had in the street level? Right. That's a number. And that's not a number I put, communicate to the problem. So maybe we're measuring the wrong things. Exactly. We're seeing it by measuring X. We're not measuring Y. And we don't have

multiple measures anymore. At one point, we did. And you can't what the old saying what we measure gets matters. Right. And this is all what we're measuring. And so if you're a commander and you've got your people in the field, you know how what the score card is. And you know how your career is going to go. It's not their fault. Okay. Academic wise guy, you are now the police commissioner. What one or two things do you change immediately as your first priority? First of all, you have to say that there are many measures are we going to evaluate you. And we're going to look also at how you interact with the community and how you solve problems and not just on root figures, not just the number of arrests. And we're not going to just go by and we're going to be more transparent. First of all, we're going to be more transparent. We're going to invite others to look at our statistics because we're no longer going to be Daddy knows best. And we're going to say,

this is a collaborative effort. We are not the sole determiners. We work for the public. And we're not just going to tell the public what the narrative is. We're going to open up the story and give the full story so we earn the trust. Every citizen who has turned away is that bottom of that iceberg who has turned away from making a report, who knows that report is downgraded. Every citizen is now alienated. We talk about terrorism. If you don't have accurate information and you're of the confidence in the public, your effort at terrorism is going to be hampered. Okay. Graham, next story, what's bubbling out there that you see as a reporter? Well, my last story was about a police sergeant who broke up a fight between 10 police rookies and a taxi driver who was then injured badly enough that he couldn't drive in it. He couldn't really drive anymore. And this police

sergeant was disciplined and has spent the last two years just trying to get his disciplinary case resolved. And that in a nutshell is what it's like to be inside that NYPD bureaucracy. Oh, my thanks to my guest Eli Silverman and Graham Raymond for being on the show. See you next week. Thank you. Hi, I'm Doug Musio. Let us know what you think about this show. You can reach us at cuny.tv. When you get there, click on the board that says contact us and send your email. Whatever it is, thanks. No thanks of notches. Do it. Send it.