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This chapter explores the politics of gambling in New York City. A long tradition of demands for black autonomy in the gambling business confronted a well developed system of gambling corruption in the New York Police Department. A citywide scandal relating to police corruption beginning in 1950, led to a crisis of police morale. As successive police commissioners attempted to clean up the gambling corruption problem in the department, the rank and file became increasingly militant and defensive. The poor reputation of the NYPD as a corrupt and brutal force undercut the ability of police to maintain order in the city, culminating with the Harlem Riot of 1964.

This chapter briefly recounts the origins of the policing experiment of the early 1990s that flew under the Broken Windows banner. It also explores how that experiment has become an institutionalized feature of New York City's law enforcement since then. The history is tailored to highlight those changes in enforcement that most affected the flow and composition of cases into the lower criminal courts. It also portrays how the justifications for this policing model demanded bureaucratic practices that in turn shaped how these low-level cases came to be processed by criminal justice actors. Specifically, the chapter emphasizes the new record-keeping and record-sharing practices that the police and courts innovated in this period in an effort to mark suspected persons for later encounters and to check up on prior records to identify and target persistent or serious offenders.

This chapter explores the emergence of state lotteries during the 1960s and 1970s. With police authority to arrest known gamblers on sight now curbed by the Supreme Court, police officials in New York and elsewhere sought to be relieved of the burden of gambling enforcement. Government lotteries emerged as an alternative to criminal enforcement against gambling. The chapter follows the political process that gave birth to the New York State Lottery and lotteries in other northern states. As these early lotteries stumbled, they became intent on capturing the urban black gambling customer. Black elected officials in New York and Chicago attempted to resist this cooptation of the numbers and policy games. Yet efforts to preserve gambling in black neighborhoods as a source of jobs failed in the face of efforts to extract revenue from the urban poor through lotteries.

This chapter discusses the range of strategies black New Yorkers used to defend themselves against white mob attacks and police malfeasance. Aspiring and elite blacks organized ad hoc associations and appealed to the authorities, the police commissioner, and the district attorney to investigate skirmishes and to fairly enforce the law regardless of the race of the culprit. Other blacks armed themselves for self-protection. These Harlemites had little faith that the New York Police Department would protect their rights. Collectively, these strategies of resistance reflected blacks' demands for the protection of their community rights, as well as the intraracial tensions that developed as the police failed to treat Harlemites fairly.

This chapter examines the issues that arise for policing nightlife scenes. It begins with an episode from one of the special meetings that the police occasionally hold at the precinct for bar owners, at which owners receive tips from officers on how to reduce quality-of-life complaints from residents and prevent crime in their bars. To enhance the quality of life in downtown neighborhoods and provide a sense of safety on streets, leaders of postindustrial cities have enacted policing strategies that target “broken windows,” or signs of public disorder. This meeting and other initiatives signify the New York Police Department's effort to curb quality-of-life complaints (e.g., noise, litter, and damage from revelers) as well as crimes inside and outside bars by making specific owners responsible for the structural conditions of dense nightlife scenes and targeting those who are “bad” and irresponsible.

In the 1990s, the United States was enjoying economic prosperity, however there were two things afflicting the most powerful and wealthy country in the world. First, urban America was afflicted by high levels of crime and there was a widespread fear of crime. Second, some parts of the nation were suffering from appalling deprivation. The difference between private affluence and public squalor was stark and the conditions of the ghetto paralleled those of developing countries. Crime and urban blight was spoiling the American success story, however, things were about to change. This chapter discusses New York's criminological miracle which was spurred by three main factors: the implication of crime and disorder in economic life and the reputation of the city; the election of Guiliani who was determined to leave a mark on the city; and the leadership of William Bratton. Together, Bratton and Guiliani tackled New York's crime problem. They introduced zero tolerance policing and in the 1980s the expression entered political parlance as a term for resolute and unbending policy. In this chapter, the focus is on Bratton's strategy and policing methods. It discusses Bratton and his method of policing the city's subway system; Bratton and his method of reforming the corrupted and demoralized New York Police Department (NYPD); Bratton and his theory of ‘fixing broken windows’; and growing popularity and public acceptance of the zero tolerance policing (ZTP).

This chapter details the early days of the Knapp Commission. In the summer of 1970, at a well-attended press conference at the New York headquarters of the National Press Club, Whit Knapp announced that the Commission had been funded and was ready to go. He stated that their purpose would be to identify whether there were systemic patterns of corruption in the New York City Police Department, and that the Commission would announce its findings in a final written report and perhaps in public hearings. However, the Commission as yet had no investigators, no equipment or office, no support staff, and no real idea of how, with a handful of people, they were going to investigate a 32,000-person police department.

This chapter presents the author's reflections on the accomplishments and impact, if any, of the Knapp Commission on the New York City Police Department, four decades after its creation. He argues that the Knapp Commission's contribution was to use the weapon of public exposure to help bring about the elimination of the general, pervasive climate of corruption that existed in the Department at that time. The findings of another commission in 1992, under the leadership of State Appellate Court Judge Milton Mollen, led to the reorganization and strengthening of the Internal Affairs Division. It was upgraded to bureau status, becoming the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB), and was heavily staffed and supplied. The Mollen Commission made clear, as had Knapp, that strong, knowledgeable leadership—chiefly on the part of the police commissioner—was key to maintaining a corruption-free police department. Knapp largely disposed of the “grass eaters” while Mollen shaped the machinery to deal with the “meat eaters.” As long as Department leadership remains strong and vigilant, there should be no need for any more commissions.

This chapter details the widespread corruption in the New York City Police Department and how a young police officer named Frank Serpico and New York Times investigative reporter David Burnham helped expose it. Burnham's front-page article was published on April 25, 1970, based chiefly on the experiences of Serpico. It also suggested that Mayor John Lindsay had deliberately ignored the problem. Within days, police corruption became a hot topic all over the city. Rumblings were heard that Serpico's revelations might be, as Burnham suggested, only the tip of an iceberg that, among other things, could threaten Lindsay's national political hopes. Lindsay, aware that the article was coming out, moved to preempt it two days before it was published by appointing a committee to study the problem and make recommendations. After three weeks, the committee recommended an independent commission, made up of prestigious citizens, with its own investigators and staff. The remainder of the chapter describes the establishment of the commission headed by former prosecutor Whitman Knapp.

This chapter presents the author's account of how the Commission dealt with the challenges of investigating corruption at the New York City Police Department. Their efforts included reaching out to academics for knowledge about corruption; identifying the dead ends into which various allegations of corruption had been shunted, including files, memoranda, and correspondence showing that the Department was not really interested in pursuing allegations of corruption; adopting techniques used by the advertising agencies in order to stir up “business,” such as circulating a survey among a representative sample of the public to determine people thought of their police department; and using their subpoena power to compel anyone who refused to talk to do so—under oath and in secret executive session.

This chapter focuses Bob Leuci, a member of the elite Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the Narcotics Division. Leuci had somehow gotten to know Frank Serpico, whose experiences had led to the creation of the Knapp Commission, and David Durk, Serpico's friend who had guided him to notoriety. Leuci had led Serpico and Durk to believe that he had a pretty thorough knowledge of the workings of corruption in the New York City Police Department, particularly in the Narcotics Division. Durk followed through, eagerly pressing Leuci for more information. But Leuci gave nothing of significance. Instead, he tantalized Durk with hearsay, generalities, and speculation—all having a very authentic ring. The Commission later found out that Leuci was a self-styled double agent. He deliberately set Durk up to arrange meetings with anti-corruption organizations, seeing them as opportunities to find out about the status of investigations that might involve him or his friends in SIU. The elite outfit was, it later turned out, not what it appeared to be.

This chapter describes the other witnesses during the Knapp Commission's public hearings. Among these is Edward Droge who testified about the everyday sort of graft that was participated in by almost everyone having a street job in the Department. While not nearly as spectacular as Phillips' testimony, Droge's story was perhaps even more relevant. Here was a “grass eater,” one of the 80 percent of the Department whom Frank Serpico had said “wished they were honest.” Other witnesses include Waverly Logan, the two young drug addicts Tank and Slim, agents Ralph Cipriani and Brian Bruh, and tow-truck operator George Burkert.

This chapter discusses the preparations for and start of public hearings on the charges of Frank Serpico on December 14, 1971. Serpico claimed that top-level people in the Department and in City Hall, perhaps including the mayor, had, in 1966–67, deliberately or negligently failed to take proper action to look into the corruption Serpico had reported to exist in the Bronx Plainclothes Division in which he then served. The Commission originally decided that the Serpico events would be dealt with in their final report, not in continued public hearings. However, Serpico's partner, David Durk, quite clearly did not want to give up what he saw as his day in the sun. Apparently Durk went to a local politician, Queens County Democratic leader Matthew Troy, and persuaded him to object. Troy held a press conference and accused the Commission of selling out. As a result of the stir caused by Troy's well-publicized accusations, and to preserve their credibility, the Commission had to show that they were not covering anything up. So, on the day before the hearings ended, Knapp announced that they would be resumed in December, for the purpose of exploring the Serpico charges.

This chapter focuses on another target of the Commission, twenty-five-year-old patrolman Edward Droge. Droge had a wife and three children, decorations for valor, and ambitions to go to college and law school. Droge's story was a fairly ordinary tale of a basically decent, even heroic cop who had been molded by pressures in the Department to the point of routinely, almost mindlessly, taking the kind of low-level graft that virtually all his buddies took. His testimony would be particularly relevant to the Commission's task because he spoke for the great majority of police officers in the Department—the 80 percent who, according to Frank Serpico's analysis, wished they were honest. In describing his time at the 80th Precinct, Drog said that all but two of the seventy or eighty men he knew personally, out of the one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy-five patrolmen in the precinct, participated, to some extent, in the kind of routine graft in which he was involved.

This chapter details the start of the Knapp Commission's public hearings on October 18, 1971, in the Grand Hall of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, in Midtown Manhattan. The room was overflowing with spectators and swarming with reporters. A long platform had been erected against the wall opposite the commissioners, in order to accommodate television cameras, but it became so crowded that it had to be extended. Whitman Knapp started the proceedings on a dignified, low-key note by giving a short opening talk on the purposes of the Commission. Chief counsel Michael Armstrong followed by delivering a specific outline of what they intended to show and the kinds of witnesses they intended to call. The remainder of the chapter focuses on the testimony of Bill Phillips.

This chapter describes some of the setbacks faced by the Knapp Commission. Specifically, one incident involving the restaurant Gasner's, which was investigated for serving free meals to police officers; and another incident involving a genuine screw-up that was initiated by an informant who at first appeared to have promising information. The informant presented himself as being well plugged in to the gypsy hierarchy. He said he had become disaffected by the illegal behavior of his brethren, and by the organized conspiracy of protection afforded them by the police. However, the Commission later discovered the informant was using them in an attempt to unseat his rival.

This chapter focuses on Waverly Logan, a troubled 30-year-old African American ex-cop who had been suspended from the force for taking a hundred-dollar bribe. Logan had been a member of yet another supposedly elite outfit, the PEP (Prevention Enforcement Patrol) Squad. This was a unit of black and Hispanic police officers formed to deal with the narcotics problem in Harlem and other minority neighborhoods in the city. Logan was discovered and interviewed by Channel 5 television producer Mark Monsky. After his interviews, the Commission was convinced that Logan was telling the truth and invited him to work with them. He agreed but getting information from him and teaching him how to tell his story convincingly proved to be difficult—he was shy, defensive, and suspicious of everyone.

This chapter describes event that occurred after the end of the Knapp Commission's public hearings. The Commission had to close shop, organize their files for presentation to various law enforcement authorities, and write a final report, which would detail what they had found, and what might be done about it. The Manhattan grand jury began investigating the Commission's own pivotal informant/undercover operative/witness/equipment supplier/technical advisor Teddy Ratnoff, who apparently absconded with the electronic equipment used in the hearings. Both Whit Knapp and chief counsel Michael Armstrong were called upon for a number of speaking engagements. There were interviews, speeches, television talk shows, articles, public debates, book offers, and even movie proposals.

This chapter continues the discussion began in Chapter 13 on William (Bill) Phillips's work with the Knapp Commission. In Phillips, they had stumbled upon one of the real “meat eaters” in the Department. Under longtime corruption fighter Chief Sidney Cooper's characterization of corrupt police officers as “meat eaters” or “grass eaters,” Phillips had all the attributes of the most voracious of meat eaters. With a swagger, he had shaken down bar owners, construction foremen, prostitutes, thieves, businessmen, other cops, pimps, gangsters, loan sharks, gamblers, and anyone else whom he could threaten or for whom he could do an illegal favor. He boasted that he never gave up trying to “score” a victim. If his solicitation for a bribe at the time of an arrest was rejected, he would continue to make overtures even up to the point of trial. Phillips's testimony, backed up by his undercover work, complete with tapes and films, would be a solid cornerstone for any hearings the Commission might hold.

This chapter details the setbacks faced by the Knapp Commission. At the end of June 1971, the Commission came to the point where, just as they were hitting full stride, their jury-rigged operation was about to come apart. Their funds were just about exhausted, without any prospect of replenishment from the City, and on July 1 they would lose most of their personnel. The agents who were on loan from the various federal agencies had more than overstayed their leaves of absence. The commitments of their supervisory attorneys were over, and all of them were about to return, or already had returned, to private pursuits. Another thing ending as of July 1, 1971, was the Commission's power to issue subpoenas and administer oaths. The City Council had reluctantly extended these powers for six months at the end of 1970. It was perfectly clear that a further extension would be impossible, at least not without the Commission making full disclosure to the City Council of what they were doing.