The NYPD’s 2025 Strategy: A Conversation With Michael LiPetri

Michael LiPetri is the chief of crime control strategies in the New York City Police Department. He sits at the center of NYPD’s data and operations, running the department’s vaunted CompStat system.  Developed by the legendary Jack Maple in the early 1990s, CompStat was conceived of and has been run as the central accountability mechanism for the department’s crime-fighting efforts. LiPetri and his team amalgamate data in as close to real-time as possible, mapping where trends are developing and identifying the people and places behind those issues. CompStat brings together the entire department to look at specific data block by block to develop strategies and to course correct when necessary. 

In this position, LiPetri has a unique perspective both on the day-to-day and on the long-range strategies of the department. Vital City sat down with him recently to discuss his perspective on how the city is doing on crime. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Vital City: Let’s start off by talking about the major drops in crime recently, down significantly since November. What do you think has been driving these drops?

Michael LiPetri: What we have seen time and time again is that field deployment is our number one strategy. In May, we identified 73 zones in New York City that basically make up 30% of the shootings and 30% of the street robberies. Basically, it’s 3.5% of the whole area of New York. That’s where we’re deploying officers. We were very, very granular.

So we started picking up steam in the summer, and then, in November, we tweaked those zones to include shoplifting areas that we know historically rise in crime with the holiday season. Again, the idea is to put cops in different areas when different crimes usually spike.

Field deployment isn’t the only factor, but it’s one of them. We also ask our detectives to do things differently in those zones. We ask our narcotics detectives to do more enforcement in those zones. We ask our gun violence suppression division to focus their efforts. We ask our transit officers to do things differently in the stations and the lines that run through the zones, and the housing bureau too. So it’s a multibureau approach within these zones.

And then there is the data. This is a game-changer for us. We built CompStat-specific books in each zone. Every Monday, commanders across the city would be able to look at the zones within their precinct and see how they were doing, whether they’re up in crime, down in crime; it really helps the commanders across the city, because they don’t have to do an analysis. That analysis is automated through my office. We really drilled down on the data behind these zones, which were built off of a density-based, spatial-clustering algorithm that uses historical data to identify crime clusters.

It has been very, very successful.

VC: So it sounds like you are taking the time-honored concept of focusing on the places and the people that are causing the most issues and then using data to match deployment to those problems.

ML: Exactly. What’s different is that the zones might not conform to precinct boundaries. We have some zones that touch three commands, for example.

VC: How big are the zones?

ML: They could be five city blocks by five city blocks. It could be just one linear street, like White Plains Road, which is one zone in two precincts. And then we have zones that encompass three commands and multiple housing developments, like the 23, the 25 and the 28 in Manhattan North. And that’s unheard of. That’s really where we have changed the game with this.

VC: Has this changed the way you run CompStat?

ML: A hundred percent. We haven’t done a zone-specific CompStat yet, but when we do have CompStat, the first 30 minutes or so is focused on what’s going on in the zones.

VC: Are you starting to see that the demographic or criminal history profiles of the people you’re arresting have been changing since the pandemic? We’ve heard that offenders are skewing older.

ML: Unfortunately, serious juvenile crime continues to be at high levels. Twelve percent of all our gun arrests were under the age of 18 last year. We had 96 juveniles who were perpetrators in shootings, and that doesn’t include juveniles who are wanted. So that has not changed, unfortunately. What I did see change over the past couple of years is first-time offender arrests for serious crime. For example, in specific patrol boroughs, we see almost 45% of all seven major arrests for individuals to be their first arrest.

VC: Is that just because you can’t see the juvenile arrests or is that a new trend?

ML: It’s both.

VC: What do you think explains that?

ML: This is not totally what explains it, but when you look at specific boroughs, it might tell a story of why. And then, when we look at a lot of these individuals, they are individuals who — whatever the reason might be — have recently come into New York City. So that is a trend that we’re looking at. 

We also still have those stubborn, very stubborn, recidivist-driven crimes, which are your burglaries. And that is totally built off of recidivism. Your shoplifting. Again, very much built off of recidivism-driven crimes.

When you look at our gun arrests and our seven major arrests, you’re talking about, last year, a 26-year high in the seven major index crimes. That’s a 7% increase from the year before. Violent crime arrests were up substantially. We’re up 9% in robbery arrests; we’re up 8% in felony assault arrests. Those are individuals we want to put handcuffs on. And then — our fifth consecutive year of over 4,000 gun arrests — we had 21,000 gun arrests for illegal firearms, with almost 19,000 guns coming off of that 21,000 gun arrests. I think that we are somewhat interrupting the flow of guns in New York City with those types of numbers. You got to go back to 1990, I believe, to get 4,000 gun arrests. And now we just had our fifth straight year.

VC: How is it that you’re able to find more guns now?

ML: Well, there are more guns out there.

But we get our NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistic Information Network) results back within days. So once we see a connection, we deploy — with a robbery or a shooting or a shots fired incident — like it’s going to be connected. We don’t wait. We’re deploying within literally minutes to move resources because of a specific moped robbery, or a shooting incident in a gang crew area, or a non-narcotics provocation, because we know they’re going to do more than one. We know that narcotics provocation; we know what they do. We know that gang crew area; we know what they do.

There are more guns coming in, but we’re taking them — so that’s why I say I think we’ve interrupted the flow. This year we’re starting the year off with basically the same goal of over 4,000 gun arrests, and I hope and am sure it will come to fruition. It’s our officers, again, being in the right areas. And if you look at gun arrests in those zones that I’m talking about, they were up substantially in gun arrests in those zones.

VC: Let’s talk first about Brooklyn and the Bronx. Brooklyn seems to have done so well. I mean shootings …

ML: Lowest number of shooting incidents in the CompStat ever.

VC: It’s incredible, right? And Brooklyn used to be a leader in this field. But then, you look at the Bronx, and it really seems to be struggling.What do you see as driving that, and what are your thoughts about a plan for the Bronx?

ML: Good question. Look, the Bronx had 37% of the shooting incidents in the city of New York last year — obviously extremely problematic. I will say, historically, it’s usually between 33% and 35%, but 37% is unacceptable.

We have given as many resources as we can to the Bronx. The volume as far as arrests really hampers the Bronx DA’s office when it comes to discovery. It is almost impossible to keep up with certain crimes and prosecute those crimes. A lot of it is because of the volume, and there’s no way they’re going to be able to prosecute low-level offenses.

Look, domestic violence drove felony assaults last year. Domestic violence continues year over year since COVID in New York City, or a little after COVID. It continues to rise. It’s hard in specific boroughs to even triage a noncooperative domestic violence victim; some are noncooperative from the time of arrest, don’t want to prosecute — things of that nature — or the DA’s office is to get in touch with that person. Those cases are tough, again, because of the volume. So that’s concerning.

We also see more youth theft, organized theft and older crew violence in the Bronx than we do in any other borough by far. So those three factors combined, no other borough has all three. You have youth crew violence, by far the highest in the Bronx; you have older gangs; and you have groups of individuals who live in the Bronx who mostly target the Bronx — though they do leave the Bronx — with organized theft. And I’m talking about individuals with grand larceny of auto and individuals with specific vehicle accessories, whether it be cat converters, tires or rims. You look across the city, and if other boroughs are having some of those issues, a lot of times, the perpetrators go back to the Bronx.

VC: You had mentioned that one of the things you see driving the felony assaults is DV. Two trends seem very striking: a big spike in felony assaults and a rising number of just the volume of crimes — things like harassment and misdemeanor assault, the kinds of things that you would imagine make New Yorkers a little edgy. What do you make of these trends? In the subway analysis that we did, one of the things that was really striking was how much robbery had dropped and how much felony assault had risen — as if the crime committed in order to get money or a thing, that’s down, but the crime that’s like the push off the platform or the slashing, that’s up. And obviously we see it above ground, too. What do you make of those two trends and what do you think could be done about them?

ML: So the assaults that you’re talking about, they’re tied to mental illness. Here’s an example: Yesterday, for CompStat, I was looking at two unprovoked assault incidents in transit within an hour and a half, and I watched both of them. This alleged perpetrator gets into somebody’s face in the train car, the individual puts his hands up just to try to separate the perpetrator from him, boom, punches him in the face. An hour and a half later, two individuals are trying just to go down the stairs. The perpetrator’s kind of blocking the stairs. They just try to squeeze by him. He viciously disfigures one person in the face and he goes to stab the other person. That’s tied to mental illness. When you talk about misdemeanor assault and other misdemeanor crimes, a lot of that is tied to lack of consequences, and that goes back to nonprosecutable, low-level offenses because of discovery.

VC: I was just looking at the felonies. It’s not just the declinations are up — they’re up a little — but the dismissals: From 2019, they go from 28% dismissed to 41% dismissed in 2023, and the convictions go from 53% dropping down to 32%. What’s happening there?

ML: There’s so many factors. The first one is, like I said, there is no way a paralegal in the Bronx DA’s office can take time on a misdemeanor offense for discovery. It’s almost impossible. And we are automating as much as we can. We just changed the game on body-worn cameras; now we link all body-worn cameras that get turned on within a certain distance at an incident, and all you have to do is have one officer dock and link all the other ones. That saves so much time.

We’re always looking to enhance our technology to get the DA’s offices’ stuff to go electronic, and we’re going to continue to do that. But again, the discovery laws — they need to be tweaked.

VC: Following up on the mental illness piece, you see the big declines in major crime, but the surveys show that how New Yorkers are feeling, both above ground and below ground, is anxious. And it does seem to come down to quality of life. Maybe it’s what they’re seeing on the street, or — there are so many things that make up what quality of life might be. But I wonder what you’re seeing about how to navigate disorderly, uncooperative behavior. What do you think the Police Department can do? What do you think other agencies can do? And how do you balance the tension between having to focus on very serious crimes and also needing to focus on the quality-of-life issues?

ML: Totally. Transit is a lot different from topside. And we are really looking this year to change certain tactics when it comes to quality of life offenses in transit.

Here’s the bottom line: Last year we wrote over 200,000 TAB (Transit Adjudication Bureau) summonses. We wrote over 6,000 criminal court summonses, up so substantially from a year ago. So we are enforcing. But I think we are going to be sending the message as far as more enforcement and less ejection.

And I think it’s going to change the game a little bit, because we know when we eject somebody most of the time, if not all the time, they’re coming right back into the transit system. We’re not looking to do that. If that individual does not have any identification, they will be arrested in lieu of the summons. An arrest is in lieu of a summons. A DAT (desk appearance ticket) is in lieu of detention. We try to identify that person back at the transit district instead of ejecting that person. And I think that that’s a great plan led by the police commissioner.

We do look in our department’s smartphones to try to identify that person at the scene. And if that person gives us a name and date of birth, and we cannot find that person in any kind of database with a picture or anything like that, they will then be brought back to the transit district and hopefully get ID’d and then be issued a criminal request notice instead of being in jail. Most of the time, they were being ejected.

VC: What role do you think the Police Department should have in dealing with people who are seriously mentally ill, on the subways or topside, or the homeless on the subways?

ML: The Police Department’s role should be as the patroller of that procedure. If somebody poses a serious risk of injury to themselves or to others, then the Police Department has the power and the authority to bring that person to the respective hospital. That’s it.

The Police Department should not be dealing with mental illness when it comes to somebody who obviously is seriously ill. That is not the Police Department’s role. And we have a role — we definitely have a role — but not for somebody who is not contributing serious injury to themselves or others.

VC: Recently, the police commissioner announced a new way to address subway crime with enforcement deployed in particular places and concentrated in the places of highest concern. Do you think that is a strategy that’s sustainable, or is that a one-shot effort and the sustainment strategy comes afterward?

ML: I think it’s totally sustainable, and I’ll tell you why. We know that 70% of the crime happens either on the train or on the platform. We know the times. We know that transit crime is linear. We know the end of the stops. We know problematic locations, meaning actual transit stations. We know the data, we know how to deploy, and we know when to put the officers on the trains, things of that nature. I absolutely think it is sustainable.

VC: Going into 2025, what do you think the major challenges are going to be for the Police Department?

ML: We always have challenges. I say it all the time. We want to get back to 2017, 2018 and 2019, in terms of the number of crime victims in New York City. It’s going to be tough. We didn’t get to the low crime levels of 2017, 2018 and 2019 in one year, two years, three years. It was a substantial year-over-year-over-year-over-year of different types of initiatives, different types of tactics of the police.

So I feel that we’re continuing a slow progress — slow — to where I think New York City can get back to. Now, it is very difficult with a lot of the things that happened. And we’ve spoken about this numerous times, me and you. And I’ve spoken about it. And I am in a little bit of a unique position in that that’s when I became chief of crime control strategies, in December of 2019. So I’ve actually seen the changes in the bail law and other legislative changes that took effect in 2020.

Some, if not most, of the changes the New York City Police Department gets. But there are others that continue to hamper us and ultimately bring less consequences to the individuals that need to be incapacitated or incarcerated.

VC: If there were one thing you could change that would have the biggest impact on crime, what would it be?

ML: You’ve got to give me two.

VC: You can have two.

ML: You’ve got to give me the tweak in the discovery law and you have to give me dangerousness for certain crimes. I’m not saying dangerousness across the board, but we do have to give the power to the judges to incorporate dangerousness into their thought process.

VC: Thank you, Chief. I appreciate your time.

ML: Thank you.