Caban and Tisch debate evidence for low-level arrest effectiveness

I think the request is, can you pull the data on that and provide it to the council in terms of the complaints and civil suits coming out of quality of life enforcement?

For sure.

Great, thank you.

Out of the quality of life division.

Quality of life division, yes.

Um,

What, Commissioner, what evidence does the NYPD have that increased arrests for low-level offenses improve public safety outcomes?

To be clear, we are not looking to make increased arrests for low-level offenses.

We give our officers a huge amount of discretion.

Discretion starts with engagement.

The quality of life division was certainly not created to gin the number of low-level arrests.

Well, Commissioner, that's not my question.

No, but that's not my question, so I just want to redirect for a second.

What evidence is the NYP?

Because we have in prior hearings where you have testified and others.

I don't have evidence of it because that is not a stated goal, so I wouldn't look at that.

The stated goal of the quality of life division.

is to address the explosion of quality of life complaints that we have seen across every precinct and every district in this city.

And as a partner in public safety, what evidence do you have that addressing broken windows offenses, low-level offenses, improves public safety outcomes?

Told you I am not interested in going back to broken windows policing where you look to make a low, you look for a low level thing to find a higher level thing.

Okay, so I will say that the theory...

What I'm looking to do is address, can I just finish?

You can have more time.

What I'm looking to do is...

Can I, Chair?

Is that cool?

I think the commission is offering more time.

Maybe like another minute and then we'll go around.

We'll definitely put you for round two.

What I am looking to do is address the explosion of 311 complaints that we have seen across every community in the city.

And those complaints differ community to community.

Thank you.

So what I want to say about this here is that either our goal has to be improved public safety outcomes or be the one to answer certain 311 complaints simply because you get them.

And what I think is important for us to analyze here is that there has been a 20-year meta-study analysis that debunks the relationship between disorder crime and using resources for broken windows policing.

Generally, it was disproved.

And even though you're saying it's not a stated goal, we have seen...

the Data Collaborative for Justice over a four-year span from 21 to 24, so a sharp upsurge in arrests for level-level charges.

A Gothamist article talked about a 3,000% increase in arrests for lying down or taking up more than one seat on the subway, and that at this point in the year, court cases for that offense in particular are already exceeding the pace

of last year.

So I just, those things don't make sense to me in terms of either you're improving public safety, you're doing the things, if you're data driven, to improve public safety, or just

going to answer 311 calls simply to answer them and not improve public safety.

But I want to ask this, and then I'll go to a second round with my questions.