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Officials: Financial crisis can lead to violence
By Rocco Parascandola
Newsday
NEW YORK — The NYPD is closely monitoring quality-of-life complaints as police commanders citywide watch for any indications of upticks in crime and the city grapples with sharp cutbacks and a dismal economy, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday.
“Our commanders are very much concerned about quality-of-life violations slipping back and giving us cause for alarm in certain neighborhoods,” Kelly testified before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. Such complaints include noise violations and public urination and intoxication.
After the hearing, however, Kelly said there’s been no indication that the recent economic downturn has caused any increase in quality-of-life crimes.
In fact, he downplayed the notion that a bad economy automatically means that crime will increase.
“We haven’t seen a crime increase when we’ve seen an economic downturn,” Kelly said, noting the wallop to the city’s finances following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
On the plus side, crime is down another 3 percent this year, with subway crime down another 4 percent compared with last year’s record lows, Kelly testified. In fact, he said crime is down 28 percent compared with 2001, when the department had about 5,000 more police officers.
Still, there are reasons for concern.
The NYPD was recently told it had to postpone its January academy class of 1,067, and a good number of those would-be officers now have to retake the test to become police officers because the four-year time frame during which they can be hired is expiring.
Kelly said certain initiatives - most notably Operation Impact, which floods high-crime areas with rookies on foot patrol and a police management team adept at dealing with limited resources - have helped the NYPD keep crime down.
But the absence of the January class deprives the NYPD of a batch of rookies to assign to Operation Impact upon graduation.
Kelly said it has not yet been decided whether the rookies who graduate next month will stay in Operation Impact beyond six months to compensate for the postponed class.
“We’re just going to have to do everything we possibly can to keep crime down,” Kelly said. “This is the hand we’ve been dealt.”
Copyright 2008 Newsday