Paul J. Browne has been appointed the New York City Police Department's Deputy Commissioner, Public Information. He previously served as the Department's Deputy Commissioner for Administration; the Assistant Commissioner for Programs and Policy; and as Director of Special Projects.

Before returning to the Police Department, Deputy Commissioner Browne served with Police Commissioner Kelly as Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Customs Service and as Chief of Staff in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Enforcement. The latter office provided oversight of the Secret Service, ATF, Customs Service, Office of Foreign Assets Control and other Treasury enforcement arms. He also served as Deputy Director of the International Monitors in Haiti where he helped establish an interim police force during the United States-led "Operation Restore Democracy" in 1994-95 for which he was awarded the Commander's Medal for Public Service by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Deputy Commissioner Browne has also served as press secretary and chief of staff for Senator Patrick Moynihan and as the public information officer for Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and the New York State Court of Appeals. He was also Vice President for Advancement at Marist College.

Before entering government service, Deputy Commissioner Browne was a newspaper reporter, first for the Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York and later as Albany bureau chief for the New York Daily News and the New York Law Journal. A native of the Bronx, he received his bachelor's degree from Marist College and a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is married to Sarah Purcell Browne, associate librarian with the New York State Attorney General's Office. Their daughter, Lacey, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, resides in Brooklyn.