im Cronin has no doubts about the source of most of the NYPD’s morale, production and public relations problems. He thinks it’s so obvious that the failure to correct the situation amounts to an organizational crime. “Where it all begins,” the 17-year veteran says, “is in the Department attitude that it’s better to have your 20-year people walk away to make room for cheaper rookies than it is to encourage them to stay on the job so they can share their experiences with the rookies and contribute the kind of know-how that would avoid a lot of ticklish situations on the street every day. As long as getting rid of people is your priority, how the hell can you expect to get the best and brightest who’re out there? Under this system, college educations stopped being a consideration for the job a long time ago. What are we aiming for now — high school diplomas?”

Cronin has more than one personal stake in his criticism. As a criminal justice student at St. John’s University in the mid-1980s, he said, he had always assumed his degree would be useful for the job. As a PBA delegate at the 43 Pct., he has had to deal with the nuts and bolts of the daily troubles arising from a Department and a City Hall that have shown themselves to prize conveyor-belt obedience more than thinking. “Let’s start with the top,” he says. “When you had Ben Ward and Lee Brown as commissioners, you had some sense that the commissioner knew what he was talking about, had some connection to the cop on the street. Then in comes Giuliani with (William) Bratton and (Howard) Safir, and they were just yes-men. Bratton got all the press because he went to the right restaurants, and finally he had his little snit with Giuliani, but he was a yes-man as much as Safir. And Safir, that one wasn’t to be believed! I mean, here’s a police commissioner who goes around bragging that he’s fired more cops than anybody! And why? Because that’s what Giuliani’s idea of success was. Jam up as many cops as you can, and he was happy. You could have a hundred gangs and criminal organizations on the street, and they couldn’t destroy the Department’s morale more than Giuliani.” But how does he really feel about the former mayor? Cronin laughs. “I haven’t even started in about the money. Or the thousand-and-one other things.”

If he were commissioner for a day, what would be at the top of his list for immediate correction?

The 38-year-old Long Island native doesn’t hesitate — the list obviously is already magnetized to his refrigerator door in Levittown, where he lives with his wife of 16 years and three children (boys of 15 and 11 and a four-year-old daughter). “Let’s just take the inexpensive things,” he says eagerly, “the things the Department can’t claim would put the city in hock. As far as the troops are concerned, why not reduce probation from two years to one? Why not full vacations after three years instead of five? Why not experiment with four-day, 10-hour shifts? Why not reduce all these specialized units and get more patrol officers out on the street where we could get a better up-front reading of what’s going on? The people in the community would be more familiar with the cops, and you’d get less of this alienation on both sides?”

A second area requiring reform, according to Cronin, is present Trial Room procedures. “There’s got to be more of a shift toward the officer in these cases,” he says. “The cop has to get the benefit of the doubt, has to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Right now these hearings are heard as though they’re at some appeals-court level, as though the defendant has already been given his day in court and been found guilty, so it’s up to him to prove a mistake has been made. But there was no previous trial. What kind of sense, even juridically, does that make? Are we saying that everybody in this country except cops are innocent until proven guilty? And the same thing with penalties for cops who are found guilty of some infraction. Those penalties have to be reduced. Safir might have been happy about all those summary dismissals, but that was often throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

Cronin also includes precinct commanders in his recipe for an improved NYPD. “The greatest contribution of COMSTAT,” he says, “has been to mistreat and abuse supervisors. Of course, these numbers have their importance. But they shouldn’t be clubs to use on the victim of the day. They should be a reason for skull sessions, for figuring out where big problems are and how these can be solved. Instead, under the COMSTAT system we have, we get supervisors being ripped into, so they return to their commands and rip into the cops under them. All of this makes everything adversarial.

One of the big reasons so many cops go over to the Fire Department is because there’s a camaraderie there even with the bosses. The bosses aren’t considered weaker at their jobs because the people under them regard them as ‘good guys.’ And precisely because things aren’t so adversarial over there, a lot of internal problems get worked out without horns and whistles. You have to have a really short-term view of the job not to realize that.”

Which brings Cronin around full circle, since short-term views of the job are what he encounters regularly. “I came over to the 43 Pct. in January 1987 and I could measure these years just in the difference of the attitudes of the old-timers. When I came on, the veteran was a guy who had had a good time on the job, but saw that it was a young man’s thing, so he was sliding out. He didn’t want to go, but he knew the time was coming. Now the attitude is, ‘Get me the hell out of here as fast as possible.’ Why stick around talking to the rooks? You’d only get depressed. Every year, the standards seem to get lower because the morale is what it is, the pay is what it is, so why should anybody with ambitions line up for the Academy? Recruitment has practically become the same as a quick fix.”

Given his attention to all NYPD problems large and small, it is hardly surprising that Cronin hesitates a moment when asked about the single least satisfying thing about his years in uniform. “There are a lot of contenders,” he laughs again, “but you can’t get away from the pay thing. I mean, for eight years now, whether through negotiations or legislation, we’ve repeatedly fallen short of a just contract. That’s simply offensive to every man and woman who has put on a uniform.” And the most satisfying thing? “Being a delegate,” he says instantly. “Being able to help solve a problem through diplomacy instead of confrontation.” Pause, then another smile. “Or have I just contradicted that?” — Donald Dewey