In an effort to beef up policing of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods, the New York Police Department is sending reinforcements to the 52nd Police Precinct’s southern areas.  

As part of a buoyed Operation Impact program, a popular anticrime initiative that floods troubled neighborhoods with foot-patrolling rookie cops, the Five-Two received 47 recent police academy graduates on Monday and expanded its current Impact Zone, a limited section of North Fordham.

The new zone will include areas directly to the south and southwest of St. James Park, sections of the command that have seen a recent spike in violent crime, quality of life complaints and reports of prostitution.

Historically, when a precinct receives a new batch of Impact rookies, the previous Impact officers, who have been walking their beats for about six months, are reassigned to different commands or different patrols. But this time, Impact officers, including the 45 in the Five-Two, will remain part of the program for at least another six months.

That means, even with three Impact officers heading to Iraq in the coming weeks, the 52nd Precinct will have 89 Impact officers patrolling the zones at various times of day.

“On any given night, we’ll have about 60 [Impact] cops on patrol,” said Captain Derrick Corrado, the precinct’s executive officer, who has been coordinating Operation Impact in the 52nd Precinct since last summer.

It also means that the greenest rookies will have a chance to partner up with those who have been working the streets of the Five-Two for the past six months.

“We’ll probably mix and match,” Corrado said.  

The city’s murder total for 2007 dropped below 500 (494) for the first time since the city began keeping reliable records in 1963. But the murder rate, as well as the overall crime rate, remained virtually the same in the Five-Two as it did last year.

“We got killed in September and October last year, but we’ve done much better in the last three months,” said 52nd Precinct Commander James Alles, who took over the northwest Bronx command in February.

But in the previous (and current) Impact Zone – which stretched, east to west, along the north side of Fordham Road (the south side is 46th Precinct territory) from Decatur to Creston avenues, and, south to north, from Fordham to 194th Street – crime dropped 32 percent over the past six months, Corrado said.

Alles and Corrado are hoping the same will be the case in the new Impact areas just south and southwest of St. James Park, where they said 15 percent of the precinct’s crime occurs.

“We’d like to have Impact on every block,” Alles said. “But we get a lot of crime [in the new Impact zones].”

Last summer, after four young men were shot outside of Tracey Towers, some older residents and community leaders wanted the area around Tracey and nearby Knox-Gates turned into an Impact zone. But Alles said downtown brass wouldn’t go for it because statistics didn’t back up the need. That’s still the case, Alles said, “It’s not even close.”

While most agree that Impact is effective in reducing crime while it’s in place, critics say that crime often returns when the initiative leaves for another area. That’s why it’s important to leave some sort of foot-patrol presence when Impact moves on, Alles said.

Alles also said it’s crucial to keep an eye on the borders of an Impact zone because sometimes the patrols just push crime just outside of the zone. He has set up additional patrols north of the current Impact zone that stops at 194th Street, an area in the news this fall because of rampant drug dealing and a string of immigrant robberies.

All 914 recent police academy graduates will be thrown into Impact zones throughout the city. Most of them will go to Brooklyn, while others will be spread out in tough neighborhoods in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan. The three precincts in the Bronx that will gain Impact cops will be the 52nd, 46th and 44th.

Ed. note: A map detailing the new and current Impact zones will be available in the next issue of the Norwood News on Jan. 24.