Some of the NYC mayoral candidates are including residency requirements for cops (requiring them to live within the 5 boroughs) as a major part of their police reform plans. Here's why I don't think that's a good idea: https://twitter.com/SallyGold/status/1356053046653054976

First, it would be really difficult to pass a residency requirement for NYPD cops. A mayor couldn't do it, nor could the city council; it would have to be the state legislature. That's because of a state law that specifically restricts residency requirements for police.

Getting the state legislature to do anything controversial is a long & painful process. Maybe with years of effort you could get them to pass a residency requirement, but at a huge opportunity cost: you could otherwise spend that time repealing criminal laws or taxing the rich.

There are about 36,000 people currently working as NYPD uniformed officers, about half of whom live outside NYC. A residency requirement would probably apply to 0 of them because they'd be grandfathered in. It would likely apply only to new hires. https://gothamist.com/news/majority-nypd-officers-dont-live-new-york-city-new-figures-show

I get the appeal of residency requirements because police often act like an occupying army in heavily policed communities. In some places I've even heard that cops are *forbidden* to live in the specific neighborhoods they police. But residency requirements don't seem to help.

Lots of cities have these requirements & still have notoriously abusive police forces. There's no empirical evidence that requiring cops to live in cities makes them more empathetic to their neighbors. They just segregate themselves inside city lines. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/13/police-residency-data/5327640002/

A @FiveThirtyEight study last year actually found that police departments subject to a residency requirement were *less* demographically similar to their cities than other departments. It also noted that these requirements are routinely flouted. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/reexamining-residency-requirements-for-police-officers/

The problem with police is that they're heavily armed, legally invulnerable, trained to think the world is made up of thugs trying to kill them, & sent out to deal with problems guns can't fix. Making them live on Staten Island instead of Westchester won't fix anything.