New Yorkers can now look up the records of police they encounter
Former NYPD officer Jillian Snider, who currently teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, worries the data portal could make officers’ jobs more difficult — or even more dangerous — at a time when she said morale is already “abysmal.”
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“Now, police officers are so under the microscope. They’re always concerned that someone is going to construe their action against another as automatically wrong, because that’s kind of the climate we’re hearing out there,” said Snider, who left the department in 2020. “I’m more fearful that cops will hesitate to take necessary action out of fear that they will be completely scrutinized and portrayed that what they did was wrong and unjustifiable.”
Snider said she has no problem with publishing officers’ disciplinary records online and thought gathering them into one place could be helpful for research. But she doesn’t believe the public should be able to see complaints against police that were never substantiated, meaning there was insufficient proof to render a disciplinary recommendation. She thinks officers should be considered innocent until proven guilty, just like in a court of law.
