The New York Police Department is launching a unit that will address quality of life concerns and crack down on panhandling, public urination, some street vending and abandonment of vehicles, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Thursday.
"When neighborhoods are plagued by issues such as aggressive panhandling, unruly street vending, public urination, abandoned vehicles, it gives the impression of an unsafe community," Tisch said at the department's annual state of the NYPD.
"Our work must not only make people safe, but it must make them feel safe too," she added.
"Our officers will not simply walk by someone who is violating the law and disrupting passengers. We are going to correct the condition."
The announcement comes a week after the NYPD started placing two police officers on every overnight subway train as officials work to improve public safety, part of a $77 million strategy that will put 750 more police officers on platforms and in stations and 300 more officers on overnight trains.
"We've doubled the number of law enforcement personnel in the New York City subway system in one year," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at the time.
Tisch said the initiatives will help "chart a new course, one that reestablishes and reinforces the natural alliance between the police and the public they serve and one that properly balances the rights of criminal defendants with the safety needs of the general public."