The Last Neighborhood Cops : : The Rise and Fall of Community Policing in New York Public Housing / / Fritz Umbach.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Umbach, Fritz,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Issues in Crime and Society
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.) :; 5 illustrations.

In recent years, community policing has transformed American law enforcement by promising to build trust between citizens and officers. Today, three-quarters of American police departments claim to embrace the strategy. But decades before the phrase was coined, the New York City Housing Authority Police Department (HAPD) had pioneered community-based crime-fighting strategies. The Last Neighborhood Cops reveals the forgotten history of the residents and cops who forged community policing in the public housing complexes of New York City during the second half of the twentieth century. Through a combination of poignant storytelling and historical analysis, Fritz Umbach draws on buried and confidential police records and voices of retired officers and older residents to help explore the rise and fall of the HAPD's community-based strategy, while questioning its tactical effectiveness. The result is a unique perspective on contemporary debates of community policing and historical developments chronicling the influence of poor and working-class populations on public policy making.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The "Last Neighborhood Cops," Community Policing, and the History of Law Enforcement in Urban America -- 1. "Our Buildings Must Be Patrolled by Foot": Policing Public Housing and New York City Politics, 1934-1960 -- 2. "A Paradox in Urban Law Enforcement": Residents, Officers, and the Making of Community Policing in NYCHA, 1960-1980 -- 3. A Confluence of Crises: The 1970s and the Undermining of Community Policing -- 4. The End of Community Policing, 1980-1995 -- 5. A Return to Origins and the Merger, 1990-1995: Losing, Saving-and Losing the Housing Police Again -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Index -- ABOUT THE AUTHOR