Posted on August 27, 2010

NYPD Brass Pressuring Cops to Keep Down Crime Stats: Report

Joe Kemp, New York Daily News, August 27, 2010

Two academics at an FBI-sponsored conference Friday will accuse the NYPD of cooking the books to make the city appear safer.

The claims are contained in a survey of more than 309 police officers–most of whom have served as precinct commanders since the department started using the CompStat program in the mid-’90s.

More than half of the respondents admitted to fudging numbers, according to the study by John Eterno of Molloy College and Eli Silverman of John Jay College.

The pair of criminologists will also release recordings they obtained from several roll calls that they say capture supervisors telling officers not to take reports of robberies unless the victim is willing to go to the stationhouse.

The recordings also capture officers being told not to take reports if they think the district attorney will not prosecute.

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Silverman and Eterno, a retired NYPD captain, will present their findings at the Crime Data Conference at John Jay’s West Side campus on 10th Ave.