he NYPD has a sinister and dishonest shadow system of discipline that can cost a police officer career advances and desirable duty assignments and put a career on hold for seven years, an entire third of an officer’s career. It’s a system that unfairly brands an officer as a malcontent or problem and gives bosses absolute control over police officers while taking all due process away from us. It is called the “Performance Monitoring Program” (PMP) and the PBA has painted a large bulls-eye on it because we believe it’s illegal, unfair and downright un-American.

In July, our legal team filed an improper practice complaint with the city Office of Collective Bargaining to compel the city and the NYPD to rescind the program and reverse the adverse impact on unfairly affected officers. Our lawyers argued that the PMP should be eliminated because it violates the New York City Administrative Code and was unilaterally created as entirely new terms and conditions of employment. Furthermore, it imposes new disciplinary penalties on cases that have already been adjudicated and for which penalties have already been imposed. In a phrase, it’s double jeopardy for police officers.

The PMP is wrong on so many levels it’s difficult to know where to begin. First, the criteria for being placed into the program are far too broad and entirely too vague. There have been instances where a police officer has been placed in the program for legitimately asserting his or her rights, and that is very wrong. In other cases, police officers have been condemned to this program based upon unsubstantiated CCRB complaints, which makes the program, unwittingly, a weapon of revenge for drug dealers and career criminals. It has also been used to punish union delegates who were too effective in representing their members.

Under PMP all you have to do to be placed in the program is to be disliked by a boss, speak out against the system, fight for your rights or do a difficult job well. That’s all it takes for the system to work against you. You can be put into an exile for years, which will cost you opportunities to advance yourself and better your family’s life. All this can occur without you having the opportunity to defend yourself or question your accuser. It’s a program that runs against every fair-play lesson we’ve learned as Americans.

This horrible little crime being perpetrated on our members came to light when one of our delegates was too vocal in defending a fellow officer who was being unfairly transferred. The delegate was told that he was being placed into the PMP so he brought the issue to PBA’s General Counsel’s office. Our lawyers immediately began to research the program and found practically nothing indicating its existence. Under questioning by the PBA’s lawyers, the department was extremely reluctant to produce any documentation about the program. It actually took a lawsuit for discovery to force the department to produce information about the program. That’s when it became clear just how unfair and arbitrary this program is.

The PBA will fight with every weapon we have against this unfair and un-American program. We’ll keep you informed of our progress.