_{^{As originally published in the New York Post on 4/10/24}}

^{Here’s where the NYPD’s new ‘Quality of Life’ pilot program will be launching this week as city tackles panhandling, open-air drug use and more}

It’s time to polish the apple.

NYPD brass will launch a new “quality of life” pilot program at six Big Apple precincts on Thursday — the first step in what top cop Jessica Tisch hopes will evolve into a 2,000-cop citywide task force tackling panhandling, open-air drug use and other gripes from everyday New Yorkers.

The “Q-Team” program, announced by Tisch in February, will function as a new arm of the department, with one supervisor running the show throughout the five boroughs, the police commissioner told The Post.

“We are going to have a new division headed up by a new chief of citywide quality of life,” Tisch said this week. “It’s something you’ve heard us talk about [in] our planning. We’re going to be piloting in six different commands in the city.

The Q-Teams will start out at half a dozen precincts citywide: the 40th in the Bronx; the 60th, 75th and Police Service Area 1 in Brooklyn; the 101st Precinct in Queens, and the 13th Precinct in Manhattan.

The new unit will target the most common 311 hotline complaints from residents — nuisances like illegal parking, abandoned vehicles, homeless encampments, unreasonable noise, and out-of-control scooters and e-bikes zipping through the city.

Tisch dismissed critics who claim the new program is a revamped version of the controversial “broken windows” policing policy once preached by top brass.

“First, in the initial implementation of broken windows, they were going after low-level offenses in order to get at higher-level offenses,” she said. “Here, we are not doing this to prevent more serious crime. We are doing this to be very responsive to what everyday New Yorkers are telling us and to improve quality of life. Frankly, to correct the condition.”

Secondly, Tisch said the Q-Team approach “is not zero-tolerance policing.”

“There will be no quotas, no inflexible activity targets,” she added. “The cops are going to be given a huge amount of discretion to address the issues that they’re being called upon to address, and addressing those issues may look like ticketing a vehicle, towing a vehicle, [or] writing a summons.”

“Arrest is a possibility, but it is among a menu of possibilities.”

Mayor Eric Adams said the new program is in keeping with his goal to be more responsive to 311 complaints.

Adams said he wasn’t concerned that the new initiative could spark more confrontations between the public and the police department, saying Q-Team cops will have a “declared directive of using discretion.”

“What we have been stating over and over again is that we have been successful in making people safe,” the mayor said. “Now, we have to be focused on ensuring people are feeling safe.

“When you have an abandoned car on your block that has been there for a few days, people tend to believe that it’s the state of lack of being safe,” he added. “So we want to match what we have done with what people are feeling.”

-TT