On Police Unions

Interesting letter to the editor in the September 14 issue of The New Yorker. It has become an article of faith among some liberal circles that getting rid of police unions is the silver bullet for police reform. But in some ways, the problem with police unions is the result of--rather than the cause of--bad policy. I 100% agree that police unions need to be brought into line, but as this letter suggests, there are equally bad actors in all layers of local and state government which enable and defend police misconduct.

Many of these bad actors can be voted out of office, as people have done in Philadelphia, Ferguson, and Chicago. So, by all means, we should do all we can to curtail the power of police unions. But if we don't also do something about this entire infrastructure of corruption, it will all be for naught.

Here's the letter:

I was impressed by William Finnegan’s cogent article about the New York City police unions (“The Blue Wall,” August 3rd & 10th). I have been following N.Y.P.D. issues for nearly thirty years, first as an executive at the New York City corporation counsel’s office, and then as a civil-rights lawyer suing N.Y.P.D. officers.

 

Unfortunately, police unions are not the only problem—just the loudest. Many governmental agencies have worked for decades to protect police officers from public scrutiny and accountability. Among the worst enablers are the New York City Law Department, led by a cadre of hard-liners whose super-aggressive tactics have prompted several federal judges to rebuke or sanction city lawyers; city comptrollers, who routinely approve millions of dollars in settlements against the police but never condition that approval on discipline of the officers; the City Council, which has failed to enact the stiffer disciplinary penalties demanded fifty years ago by the Knapp Commission; the state legislature, which has not repealed an outdated law, in place since 1940, that gives hearing officers controlled by the police commissioner sole jurisdiction over disciplinary proceedings; the city’s district attorneys, who regularly dismiss cases on the basis of false police reports but never indict the officers who lied in those reports; and the civilian complaint-review board and the office of the inspector general, agencies that are weak and ineffectual.

As for the unions, at least their power has waned, owing to the changing demographics of the city. Today, the police unions have very little electoral strength; their political influence is limited to a smattering of voters in certain areas of Staten Island. And, with the Democratic takeover of the State Senate, they can no longer cling to power by throwing money at Republican state senators. One must hope that the diminishment of their electoral strength will result in the elections of mayors, comptrollers, City Council members, state legislators, and district attorneys who will call for genuine N.Y.P.D. accountability and transparency.

Joel Berger

New York City