Policy Goals

Since PROP’s founding in 2011, our thinking about the kinds of criminal justice reforms worth promoting has evolved. We used to view incremental changes positively, but what our eyes have told us over the years, and what our knowledge of relevant research has taught us, is that such tweaks or modifications of practice don’t lead to substantive changes on the ground. 

We at PROP have become convinced that the NYPD’s unjust policies not only violate our country’s central founding principle of providing equal justice and opportunity for all its people, but also that the Department’s racist practices are so entrenched, and so long-standing, that only fundamental and far-reaching changes can end abusive and discriminatory policing in our great city. With this understanding, we are excited to announce & present:

PROP’S POLICY GOALS

  1. Abolishing “broken windows” policing that was popularized by former New York City mayor and now indicted criminal Rudy Guiliani and that targets low-income communities of color for minor offenses that have been virtually decriminalized in white areas.

  2. Ironic though it may be to call on a police department to follow the law, enforcing the New York State legislation enacted in 2010, nearly 15 years ago, that banned police quotas. Although illegal, the NYPD persists in employing quotas that pressure its officers to make a prescribed number of arrests in a given time period. 

  3. Dismissing all police officers who engage in reckless, racist, and brutal actions that harm and/or compromise the rights and welfare of New Yorkers. 

  4. Establishing an independent prosecutor’s office whose sole purpose would be to investigate & prosecute, when called for, all alleged acts of police brutality & excessive use of force, even in cases when the victim was armed & did not die.

  5. Reallocating resources from the current bloated NYPD budget to government and neighborhood services that strengthen families and build communities. A specific example would include having mental health professionals, not police officers, be the first responders to NYers in psychiatric crisis.

  6. Reducing the personnel and power of the NYPD, the guiding principle being in part the time-honored shibboleth that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” applied to the unchecked power of the NYPD.

Specific Reforms

Abolishing “Broken Windows” Policing

“Broken windows” is a policing model popularized by former New York City mayor and now indicted criminal Rudy Guliani that targets small crimes in “high-risk” neighborhoods to, supposedly, prevent larger crimes. According to the NYPD, almost every “high-risk” area is a neighborhood of color. Through this system, NYPD targets poor New Yorkers of color for minor infractions that are virtually ignored in white areas. The data on this is unquestionable:

  • Government data shows that 93-95 percent of the NYPD’s juvenile arrests involve Black or Latino young people. Over 90 percent of the New Yorkers locked up on Rikers Island are Black or Latino, so confined for two basic reasons: they are too poor to afford bail and the NYPD arrested them.

  • Year after year 87-88 percent of NYPD misdemeanor arrests involve New Yorkers of color. Similarly, year after year, over 50 percent of NYPD felony arrests involve Black New Yorkers, though they make up only 20 percent of the city’s population. 

  • The New York Daily News has reported that in 2023 New Yorkers of color made up 94% of NYPD stops. Though, again, Black New Yorkers make up only 20% of the city’s population, they represented 60% of these recorded stops.

  • Since 2014 PROP’s Court Monitoring Project has sent volunteers to sit in the city’s arraignment parts to track NYPD arrest practices. We have found that about 90 percent of the observed cases, 7,460 of 8,310, involved New Yorkers of color. Under Mayor Eric Adams, the racial disparity has become even more stark. Of the 1,567 cases we have observed during Adams’ first 2 years in office, 1,440, about 92%, involved New Yorkers of color.

Abolishing “broken windows” policing is the only way New Yorkers can feel safe from the department supposed to protect them.

Establishing an Independent Prosecutor’s Office

PROP is calling on the city council to establish an independent prosecutor’s office separate from the executive branch and the boroughs’ district attorneys. This prosecutor’s sole purpose would be to investigate and, when called for, prosecute all alleged acts of police brutality and excessive use of force, even in cases when the victim was armed or did not die.


Disbanding Notorious NYPD units

Certain NYPD units, while focusing on specific groups and/or activities, are notorious for abusing their power and violating the rights of New Yorkers from vulnerable constituencies. The police units PROP calls to be eliminated include nuisance abatement, vice, and peddlers squads.

Enforcing The Law Prohibiting Police Quotas

Ironic though it may be to call for the NYPD to follow the law, it is past time for the department to conform to the provisions of state legislation enacted in 2010 that bans police quotas throughout New York State. This law prohibits police agencies from establishing any policy that requires officers to make a specific number of arrests or to issue a specific number of tickets or summonses within a given time period. It is almost 15 years past time for New York City to put a stop to the quota system that continues to operate illegally within its police department, and the city’s mayor has the power to do so.

Transferring Traffic Enforcement to a New Agency

Through May 2024, NYPD officers have issued 293,745 traffic summonses. Why do we need an officer with a gun, badge, and club to pull someone over who’s driving a car with a broken tail light? Another relevant point: a number of the recent killings of Black people by officers in different parts of the country started as traffic stops. If other government personnel made those stops, the victimized Americans would still be alive.

Practical examples of this approach are working within the United States. Berkeley, California, has established a new traffic safety department, BerkDOT, which employs unarmed civilian employees to conduct traffic stops. Denver, Colorado, has also implemented a program that employs civilian professionals within the police department to investigate crashes and nonmoving traffic violations

Mental Health Professionals as First Responders

Mental health professionals should be the first responders to emergencies involving persons in psychiatric crises. Currently, 911 dispatchers have two options: to send an officer or an ambulance. We propose removing the 911 unit from the NYPD and providing dispatchers with a list of mental health organizations, social service groups, and community-involved clergy for every neighborhood in the city. Professionals with years of training and preparation would arrive on the scene, and the decision that physical restraints are needed would rest with them. Such a considered approach would save lives rather than take them.

Examples of this already exist within the US. Eugene, Orgeon’s CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) program allows mental health professionals and social workers to be sent to instead of police. Denver’s STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) program and San Francisco’s Street Crisis Response Team employ similar methods to CAHOOTS and have been very successful. This approach would not only improve the outcomes of New Yorkers in crisis but save the city millions of dollars currently going to the NYPD’s inflated budget.