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The final bill before me today is Introductory Number 910-A, sponsored by Speaker Vallone in conjunction with my Administration. The bill would require the Police Department to report crime-related data to the City Council four times a year.

In large measure, the historic reductions in crime that the City has seen over the last eight years are rooted in the way the Police Department is managed. On a routine basis, information from every precinct in the City is analyzed so that Department officials can spot trends and address emerging problems before they begin to seriously threaten public safety and undermine our quality-of-life. Most importantly, everyone in the Department, from cops on the beat to senior officials, is held accountable for his or her performance. These management reforms instituted by my Administration have resulted in historic reductions in crime and a more disciplined Police Department.

This legislation is designed to help ensure that the culture of accountability becomes forever institutionalized in the Department. By requiring the Department to disclose critical indicators and data on crime to the City Council on a quarterly basis, the bill will allow the City's elected officials unprecedented access to important Department information, enabling the elected representatives to more effectively oversee operations. Four times a year, Council members will have the opportunity to study reports on the total number of crime complaints broken down by precinct, the number of arrests categorized by type of crime in each precinct and special unit, and each precinct's summons activity.

Importantly, this bill also requires the Department to submit a report on the number of stop, question and frisk encounters broken down by the race and gender of the people stopped, as well as a breakdown of the arrests and summons that arise from stop, question and frisk encounters. Just as importantly, Council Members will be able to compare the stop, question and frisk information with data detailing the race and gender of suspects as identified by crime victims. A current review of all of this information will demonstrate that the NYPD stops individuals primarily on the basis of the description of the criminal as provided to the police by the crime victim.

The bill will make the Department's practices more transparent and, therefore, I hope, will change the tenor of the City's dialogue about its police officers. The data provided to the Council will now show, and should always continue to demonstrate, that officers do not engage in deliberate discriminatory practices. I hope that the facts made apparent by this bill will undermine the credibility of those who baselessly create perceptions intended to manufacture distrust between communities and the Police Department for mere political gain.

I am therefore pleased to sign legislation that will foster a more accountable and transparent Police Department.

For the reasons previously stated, I will now sign the bill.

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