If It Weren’t For Comstat You Wouldn’t Think Crime Was Down, And If You Don’t Think Crime Is Down Then You Don’t Know Any Better Anyway — Until You Get Mugged, But Then You’ll Probably Just Assume It Was An Aberration, In Which Case, Cool, Keep Cooking Those Books, Landsman

It’s like the Western District on The Wire but for reals (there’s audio, too!):

On December 8, 2008, he excoriates officers who failed to write enough tickets for double-parking, running red lights, and disorderly conduct, and who failed to stop-and-frisk enough people.

“I see eight fucking summonses for a 20-day period or a month,” he says. “If you mess up, how the hell do you want me to do the right thing by you? You come in, five parkers, three A’s, no C’s, and the only 250 you do is when I force you to do overtime? I mean it’s a two-way street out here.”

Later, he adds, “In the end, I hate to say it — you need me more than I need you because I’m what separates the wolves from coming in here and chewing on your bones.”

. . .

In another incident, an elderly man walked in off the street to report that someone had broken the lock on the cash box in his apartment and had stolen $22,000. When he reported the incident at another precinct, he was told that it was a “civil matter” and to call 3-1-1, the city’s complaint hotline.

New York Is Not Safer, Just Cheaper On eBay

The Observer quipped that New York was like The Wire the other day when they linked to the Times’ story about how the City intends to tear down some mid-rise housing project buildings in Brooklyn. But it even goes beyond that:

More than a hundred retired New York Police Department captains and higher-ranking officers said in a survey that the intense pressure to produce annual crime reductions led some supervisors and precinct commanders to manipulate crime statistics, according to two criminologists studying the department.

. . .

In interviews with the criminologists, other retired senior officers cited examples of what the researchers believe was a periodic practice among some precinct commanders and supervisors: checking eBay, other Web sites, catalogs or other sources to find prices for items that had been reported stolen that were lower than the value provided by the crime victim. They would then use the lower values to reduce reported grand larcenies — felony thefts valued at more than $1,000, which are recorded as index crimes under CompStat — to misdemeanors, which are not, the researchers said.

Meanwhile, the Daily News publishes a firsthand account of another way to fudge the numbers on New Year’s Eve:

People who came into the stationhouse couldn’t believe the precinct captain was there to greet them and take their crime report. The supervisors and cops looked at me like I was nuts, or more accurately, just pathetic. But there was no way I was going to be the only captain in Brooklyn South who couldn’t beat last year’s figures.

. . .

So what did I do that night? Did I fudge crime stats? Did I send crime victims on their way with no satisfaction? Absolutely not! I just . . . delayed.

I might have taken the complaints, but nothing was getting logged in the computer — and therefore would not “officially” count in Compstat — until after midnight. Until 1998.

The complainants were happy. They got personal service from the captain. The 124 room civilian personnel were happy. They got to relax that night because nothing was going into that computer until I said so. More importantly, the borough commander and, ultimately, the police commissioner, were happy because Bensonhurst came in one so-called “index” crime below the year before. CRIME WAS DOWN IN ALL OF BROOKLYN SOUTH!

Well, not really, because seven index crimes measured in Compstat were reported by victims from 2 p.m. to midnight, but since I prepared and reviewed the hand-written “scratch” copies, only five crimes could possibly be entered into the computer program by midnight. The other two were typed in sometime in the early hours of 1998 – a new year!

Did that make me corrupt or unethical? Maybe. Who cares now? All I know is I didn’t get any nasty calls or threats from “downtown” on Jan. 2.

Maybe The Metal Handcuffs Were Over The Top?

Don’t worry, the Board of Education has a plan:

After Alexa scribbled her name, the date and a smiley face on her desk during a Spanish class on Monday, her teacher reported her to an assistant principal, who placed a call to cops, city officials said.

The cops arrested Alexa, escorting her out of the school with her hands behind her back in metal handcuffs, Camacho said.

City Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg called the episode a mistake. “The principal made a mistake and has lifted the suspension,” she said.

. . .

The NYPD is expected this month to start using Velcro handcuffs to subdue unruly kids following a pilot program in 22 schools in northern Queens.

Short People Got No Reason To Live

But it’s weird — he looks so much taller on TV:

A con man trying to impersonate Paul Simon was arrested for trying to take money out of the singer’s bank account — because the teller realized the 6-foot-1 crook looked absolutely nothing like the diminutive rock legend, police sources told The Post.

This Was To Be Our Stimulus!

The make-work plan for the department busy with quota–driven ticketing (and more ticketing) and busting people for candy hits a snag when both Bloomberg and then the White House wimp out:

The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would “prefer that they did it elsewhere” and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder.

“It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that’s too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood,” Bloomberg told reporters.

“There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City.”