For two decades, police officials viewed the enforcement of minor infractions as a way to prevent crime and violence. “Quality-of-life enforcement works to reduce crime,” wrote Jack Maple, a primary architect of the approach during [William] Bratton’s first tour as police commissioner in the 1990s, “because it allows the cops to catch crooks when the crooks are off duty, like hitting the enemy planes while they’re still on the ground.”Um, no. The drunk Wall Street analysts are very much likely to be "relaxing after a long day of robbing." I'd like to think we all understand that now, though probably not.
On the issue of public urination, enforcement need not be evenhanded, according to Mr. Maple. In his 1999 memoir, “The Crime Fighter: Putting the Bad Guys Out of Business,” he wrote that “Wall Street analysts doing Jell-O shots” on Madison Avenue may be just as likely to urinate in public “as a crew of robbers drinking malt liquor” in East New York, Brooklyn. “But only one of those groups is likely to include somebody who’s relaxing after a long day of robbing,” he added, suggesting that officers should more heavily enforce the law in those areas.
Public urination has become an issue here in the city because the New York Post has devoted two recent front pages to a homeless man caught relieving himself in public on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It's been noted that this is where Post editor Col Allan lives, which explains why he put a minimum of sixteen reporters on the story of one homeless guy whizzing. The irony is that Allan, as noted in a 2007 New York magazine profile by Lloyd Grove, has interesting bladder habits himself:
Allan likes to intimidate employees via public urination: “It was also at the Telegraph that he perfected his management techniques -- which included an unnerving alpha-dog habit of urinating in his office washbasin during editorial meetings. Today, Allan insists the washbasin was behind a closet door.”Rupert Murdoch can't die soon enough.
