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| New York City DOC's Gang Intelligence Unit |
| By Keith Martin, Assistant Editor |
| Published: 07/02/2001 |
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Partnerships between law enforcement and corrections agencies to share gang information are rapidly developing nationwide. By pooling data on known members both in the street and behind bars, officers can stay knowledgeable about gangs and try to control their activity. No better place can this be seen than in New York City. For the past several years, the New York City Police Department and the New York City Department of Correction's Gang Intelligence Units have been working together, combining information and officers to combat gang activity in and out of prison. The Corrections Connection recently spoke to Peter Curcio, Commanding Officer of the New York City DOC's Gang Intelligence Unit. Curcio has returned to the unit after a six-month stint with the FBI, working as an Executive Fellow in their Safe Streets and Gang Unit. As the first corrections officer to serve that role, he shared gang intelligence with Bureau investigators from his experiences in New York's prisons. How many officers currently make up the unit? How did it begin? We now have 43 staff members in the unit: 38 Detective Investigators, four captains and myself. We deploy a number of our staff to different agencies. For example, we have three Detective Investigators assigned to the New York Police Department Gang Intelligence Unit, and two officers work with a conglomerate of New York and New Jersey law enforcement agencies, supplying them with gang information. Our unit has been together since 1995. Then, we had about 100 slashing or stabbing incidents per month, whereas last month, we had two. Overall, we have had a 94% reduction in violence in our facilities. In 1995, gangs were running wild and it was anarchy in the facilities. We had officers and inmates getting hurt. We had a lot of officers out with injuries and others afraid to come to work. The headlines of our local papers referred to [our facilities] as a 'powder keg ready to blow.' It was at that point that we needed to do something about it. Since the creation of the unit, six years ago, we have had tremendous success and our commissioner, William Fraser, has challenged us to take the unit in another direction and help those in the street [dealing with gangs]. Six weeks ago, we began having six NYPD detectives deployed here and that has been a gold mine. Talk about your database of gang members. Right now, we have about 1,860 individuals in DOC custody who are gang members. Our Security Risk Group (SRG) database includes information for over 9,000 individuals, from photos to gang affiliation and ranks. We are in the process of linking our database with the NYPD's intelligence, gang tracking and incident databases. By linking these databases, we hope to have insurmountable intelligence. The NYPD currently has an investigation into a group of known SRGs, and a majority of their intelligence was provided from inside our jails in order to make a case. If we have an inmate here that we are interviewing and he says that he has not done this or that, we can then punch their name into the NYPD intelligence database and any report on that individual will come up. We then have additional information on him and can talk to him about what the report says. How important is the role of information in combating gang activity? It is key. We do about two or three tours a week and the number one question we are always asked is: Don't other inmates get suspicious [when we pull them out for interviews]? The fact is that we do so many interviews, that it is no longer out of the ordinary for them to talk to investigators, so other inmates wouldn't know or speculate that another guy is giving us information. How has your relationship with the NYPD changed since the creation of the GIU? Before 1995, there were humongous walls [between the two agencies]. I think that they did not understand the value of correctional intelligence and we didn't want to go out and work the streets. Now, under Commissioner Fraser and NYPD Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, who came from the DOC, there is a greater value seen in the information that can come from corrections. Even the FBI, law enforcement on a national level, understands that there is lots of intelligence behind bars. Once our department and the NYPD started working together and getting rid of the negative relations, they saw how helpful our information could be and they were in awe. They didn't understand what was going on [in prison]. My officers understand how inmates work and act, as well as having a better understanding of how they operate when they are back out on the street. For example, on a ride through the streets with one of our new partners from the NYPD, I can recognize that a group of guys have been in our custody by looking at the clothes they are wearing and how. Some wear army surplus clothes like the ones they receive in prison out on the street as a way of saying 'I've been in jail.' We can then talk to those guys knowing a little more about them. The [NYPD] detective can know better recognize guys out on the street. The same thing works by looking at tattoos [and recognizing the gangs they symbolize]. My officers that work with the NYPD Gang Intelligence Unit conduct three roles. First, they provide correctional intelligence from visit records, phone records and other sources. Secondly, they conduct the Gang Recidivist Intervention Program (GRIP). In this program, the NYPD identifies someone back in the system and we interview him or her. Often, these inmates feel more comfortable talking to corrections personnel. Third, they are involved in 'Hot Precinct.' Each week, we receive a printout of violent activities from around the city and in schools divided by precinct. I disseminate this information to all our correctional investigators and during their nearly 20 or 30 interviews per day, they ask inmates from those neighborhoods if they know anything about the incidents, as well as asking visitors - both are willing to talk. We then send that intelligence back out into the streets. Resources For more information on the New York City DOC's Gang Intelligence Unit, go to: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/doc/html/giu.html |
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