DESPITE WIDE SUPPORT, BILL ON POLICE DISCIPLINE LANGUISHES

After separate police corruption investigations more than two decades
apart, the Knapp and Mollen Commissions arrived at an identical
finding: there was a serious defect in the city law that governs how
the New York City Police Department disciplines its own.

The only two sanctions that could be imposed in cases of severe
misconduct -- the forfeiture of 30 days' pay or outright dismissal --
were either too lenient or too strong in many instances, the panels
found, and so officers, and at times, justice, suffered.

Veteran officers with otherwise untarnished careers risked being fired
for their first serious offense because there was no middle range of
punishment. Others found guilty of serious misconduct might escape
with the loss of just 30 days' pay.

The Giuliani administration sought to amend the law in 1994,
introducing legislation that would allow the Police Commissioner to
impose demotions, fines as high as $25,000 and suspensions of up to
one year.

But 27 years, 11 police commissioners and several thousand misconduct
cases after the Knapp Commission issued its findings, the law remains
untouched. And this month, as efforts to amend the law resume,
officials cannot agree on who is responsible for the inaction.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir blame
Councilman Sheldon S. Leffler, the chairman of the City Council
committee in which the bill has gathered dust for five years, for the
delay.

Mr. Leffler, who says he strongly supports the bill, says it is
Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, who largely controls the legislative
process, who has been stalling.

Aides to Mr. Vallone, who also says he supports the legislation, said
the Mayor had not pushed very hard or very consistently for it until
the negotiations began anew.

As Speaker, however, Mr. Vallone did not need either the Mayor's
enthusiasm or Mr. Leffler's consent to move forward with the bill.

Mr. Vallone's aides acknowledge that the bill's legislative pace has
been leisurely, to say the least, in part because they have been
occupied with other possible police reforms, and in part because they
sought to carefully evaluate the opposition of the police unions, who
complain that it is unfair.

''We are trying to do a cooperative effort that takes in the concerns
of the administration and tries to address the concerns that the
unions have raised,'' said Michael Clendenin, a spokesman for Mr. Vallone.

Mr. Vallone has received $34,000 in campaign contributions from police
unions in the last four years, though his aides said those donations
had not played a role in his handling of the discipline bill. A check
of filings from Mr. Giuliani's last mayoral campaign and his expected
bid for United States Senate did not turn up any contributions from
police unions.

The unions are vehemently opposed to the legislation. They say that
Mr. Safir can already mete out middle-range punishments and does so
often, using the threat of termination to extract negotiated plea
agreements from officers who have been charged with serious misconduct.

Even though Mr. Safir cannot, by law, impose suspensions longer than
30 days, union leaders said officers routinely accepted harsher
punishments to avoid losing their jobs.

''He is asking for powers that he already has,'' Patrick Lynch, the
president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said of Mr.
Safir. The union's lawyer, Stuart London, said, ''The way it is now,
pretrial, he has as much flexibility as he wants.''

But Mr. Safir said there are many cases in which officers refuse to
negotiate and he is left with ''either an option that is too stringent
or not stringent enough.''

''It's not easy,'' he continued, ''to do justice when you have only
two options for everybody, because some people who commit what really
are 30-day offenses get 30 days, and some people who commit an offense
that exceeds 30 days, but does not rise to termination, are not
getting punished adequately.''

In other cases, department officials said, officers with long careers
who were found guilty of a single instance of serious misconduct, like
patronizing a prostitute, have been dismissed because officials felt a
30-day suspension was too lenient. ''A serious offense which merits
more than a 30-day suspension may ultimately become termination simply
because I have no other option,'' Mr. Safir said in testimony he
submitted to the Council in 1997.

Mr. Safir fired 74 officers last year, a fact he often cites when
civil rights advocates accuse him of being too soft on misbehaving
officers. Although the number of dismissals has had an impact on the
rank and file, who clearly view Mr. Safir as a disciplinarian, the
department is often criticized for being too lenient in many
misconduct cases.

For example, in 1998 the Commission to Combat Police Corruption cited
in one of its reports an instance in which the department had allowed
a police officer who beat his girlfriend and aimed his gun at her to
negotiate a 30-day suspension and remain on the job. The commission
has also noted that Mr. Safir often fails to use the disciplinary
weapons already at his disposal. For example, the panel said that in
cases in which the department could legally impose separate 30-day
suspensions on officers found guilty of multiple charges, it had not,
choosing instead to let a single suspension suffice.

The bill to expand the commissioner's disciplinary arsenal was
introduced in 1994, shortly after the Mollen Commission released its
recommendations for combating corruption. For three years, the bill
sat in the Council's Public Safety Committee. But after holding two
public hearings on the bill in 1997, the Council leadership scheduled
a committee vote for Dec. 16 of that year, Mr. Leffler said. ''I
believe I expected it would pass,'' he added.

But when he got to City Hall on the day of the vote, Mr. Leffler said
he saw a notice posted outside the Speaker's office. The Public Safety
Committee meeting, and the vote, had been canceled. Nearly two years
later, the legislation is still sitting in the committee.

''We have been trying to resolve a number of issues for a couple of
years,'' Mr. Clendenin said.

Mr. Safir said the biggest factor in the delay has been Mr. Leffler,
who is consistently one of the commissioner's most outspoken critics.
''This is something he has obfuscated, obscured and not brought to a
vote,'' Mr. Safir said. ''And the only conclusion I can come to is
that he is carrying the water'' for the unions.

Mr. Leffler, who said he had never received any police union money for
his campaigns, said it was difficult for him to move the legislation
forward without Mr. Vallone's help. ''The people working on this are
not proceeding with the determination to bring this to a conclusion
that I have seen with other bills before the Council,'' he said.

Mr. Vallone's office said it had been waiting for further research
from the police unions, who had promised to show concretely just how
infrequently Mr. Safir was blocked from imposing the sort of
punishment he wants. ''There are also a lot of legitimate concerns
about the extent of the penalties the Mayor is proposing,'' Mr.
Clendenin said. ''If, for instance, an officer disobeyed a superior,
he could get socked with up to a $25,000 fine, which is three-quarters
of a year's salary.''

If Mr. Vallone has not rushed forward with the bill, Mr. Clendenin
said, neither has anyone else. ''It has not been on the top of
anyone's agenda,'' he said.

Stephen M. Fishner, the Mayor's criminal justice coordinator, begged
to differ, suggesting that the administration has been pushing for the
legislation for years, especially this year, when disciplinary issues
became so prominent in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Amadou
Diallo by police officers. ''One of the key elements,'' he said, ''has
been that, if you are going to hold the police commissioner
responsible for disciplinary problems within the Police Department,
give him the tools that he needs.''

Mr. Safir said he was confident a bill would be approved this fall, an
optimism that the Council leadership shares. Mr. Leffler said he was
not so sure.

''As a betting man,'' he asked, ''do I believe we will get a bill
soon? I am loath to venture a guess.''