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Read: New York City Cops Still Don’t Know Why They’re Stopping People on the Street
Police officers are not too thrilled about safety—or much of anything at all—in New York City since Bill de Blasio became their mayor and Bill Bratton took back his old gig as police commissioner two years ago, the New York Post reports.
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A Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) online poll apparently surveyed 6,000 of NYC’s 24,000 cops (that’s a quarter of all officers for you non-math folks). The pollsters found little enthusiasm among cops for their gigs, with overall morale at “2.49 on a scale of 1 to 10.” Around 87 percent of police officers polled think NYC has become “less safe” since the beginning of 2014, and a mountainous 96 percent of NYPD officers suggested relations between themselves and the districts they patrol have deteriorated.
(it is worth bearing in mind that the PBA is a political organization, and its combative head, Patrick Lynch, has clashed openly with Mayor de Blasio’s administration for years now.)
Over three quarters of NYPD officers surveyed wouldn’t recommending joining the force to family members. If offered higher paying jobs elsewhere, a whopping 89 percent said they’d split. A Manhattan cop told the Post—traditionally a fiercely pro-cop outlet—that spirit among NYPD officers has “always been bad, but this is the worst.”
The city has yet to actually see the official poll results, though, and some official were skeptical of the early figures. City Hall spokeswoman Monica Klein rejected the survey out of hand, arguing the city is “experiencing historic lows in criminal activity.”
For his part, Commissioner Bratton said Monday that he doesn’t necessarily dispute the results so much as find them less than revelatory.
“I’ve been in the business for 40 years, and cops have been complaining about low morale at every place I’ve ever worked, every police department I’m aware of,” he said. “Cops have never been happy about the pay in this city, and that’s the reality of it.”
