Case Study: New York City Police Department restores public trust and crowdsources quality-of-life policing with IdeaScale

The Most Innovative Use of Social Media for Citizen Engagement

The New York City Police Department, tasked with reducing crime and improving quality of life, faced a trust deficit after years of a “my way or the highway” approach. New leadership in 2014 found through surveys that many New Yorkers no longer fully trusted the NYPD, making it harder to get community cooperation—reports, witnesses and street intelligence—needed to keep neighborhoods safe.

To rebuild trust and engage residents, the NYPD overhauled training and recruitment, expanded its social media presence, and in April 2015 piloted IdeaScale in six precincts to crowdsource neighborhood priorities and give officers dedicated time to address them. The initiative drew over 4,000 participants, generated roughly 300 actionable quality-of-life issues (from gangs and graffiti to noise and traffic), added a workload-tracking tool for commanders, and has shown measurable early success with plans for further expansion.

New York City Police Department

Zachary Tumin

Deputy Commissioner