Mr. Kerik, however, said he thinks that improved community relations and quality-of-life enforcement can go hand in hand, arguing that aggressive enforcement improves neighborhoods for residents, and better relations help the police do their job by building trust and understanding between officers and residents.
After several months focusing largely on undercover narcotics enforcement, the program was broadened to include uniformed officers conducting additional quality-of-life enforcement and patrols to help protect livery-cab drivers, prompted by a spate of robberies and slayings this year.
The mayor and Mr. Kerik have credited quality-of-life enforcement with helping to reduce crime.
Yet even Mr. Giuliani, the pioneer of quality-of-life enforcement, has done relatively little to quiet the city.
But Mr. Kerik defended the wisdom of pushing for higher numbers, and called quality-of-life enforcement effective.
Starting in May, the overtime funds were spent on additional uniformed patrols and quality-of-life enforcement.
African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans all favor quality-of-life enforcement even more strongly than whites.
"I thought it was, at a minimum, important to show symbolically that quality-of-life enforcement had exceeded reasonable and legal limits," Mr. Lasdon said.
Tell a cop, demand more quality-of-life enforcement from the city, demand more public trash cans or a ban on eating on trains.
What was quality-of-life enforcement for the police was often seen as harassment by residents, and misdemeanor arrests swamped the city's criminal courts with defendants of every race and nearly every economic class.
