STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Mayor Eric Adams announced the expansion of the NYPD’s Quality of Life Division to Staten Island, completing the citywide rollout of specialized teams addressing non-emergency complaints.
Here are five key takeaways from the original article by the Advance/SILive.com.
1. Staten Island becomes the final borough to receive specialized ‘Q-Teams’
Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced that Staten Island is now receiving dedicated police squads known as “Q-Teams” to address quality of life issues. These teams consist of specially-trained officers from various NYPD roles, including neighborhood coordination officers, youth coordination officers, and traffic safety officers. Each team operates at the precinct level under a Quality of Life Division sergeant and focuses on non-emergency complaints like abandoned vehicles, illegal scooters, and late-night noise disturbances that “add up and create chaos and disorder.”
2. Response times for non-emergency calls have been significantly reduced
Since the program’s initial rollout in April, Q-Teams across New York City have responded to more than 41,000 calls for non-emergency services. Adams highlighted that response times for these non-emergency calls have been reduced by an average of 50 minutes. This improvement is particularly significant considering that 311 calls have doubled from 2018 to 2024, a trend officials have previously connected to the coronavirus pandemic.
3. The initiative has already shown enforcement results in other boroughs
During the initiative’s first 60 days across six commands that were part of a pilot program, officers issued over 6,100 summonses and made 357 arrests. Tisch described the quality of life initiative as “the fastest growing” NYPD program she’s witnessed in her 17 years working in government.
4. Officials say this is not a return to ‘Broken Windows’ policing
Tisch directly addressed concerns from community advocacy groups who have characterized the new policy as a reboot of the controversial “Broken Windows” initiative from the 1990s. That earlier approach under Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been criticized as an example of institutional racism that unnecessarily targeted Black and Latino men in impoverished neighborhoods. Tisch firmly rejected these comparisons, stating they “could not be further from the truth” and emphasized that the current initiative is “not about broken windows, it’s about building trust; fixing people’s problems.”
5. The initiative comes amid declining major crime rates
The reallocation of department resources to quality of life issues coincides with historic lows in gun violence and several other major crimes over the past 18 months on Staten Island and throughout New York City. Adams emphasized that “public safety is about more than just crime stats… this is about how people are feeling and what they see when they walk out the front door,” highlighting what he says is the administration’s focus on addressing residents’ everyday concerns alongside traditional crime reduction efforts…