Department Of Investigation
One of the oldest Hollywood cliches revolves around New York City and organized crime. But did you know that there is a faction of the government in place to investigate any issues within the city government? The Department of Investigation, more commonly known as the DOI, is the only organization of it’s kind in existence in the United States.
A relatively small outfit compared to its larger crime-fighting brethren, the DOI’s mission is daunting: Keeping 300,000 city employees at scores of agencies honest as well as city-elected officials, boards, commissions, the school system and the housing authority.
The oft-overlooked agency was created more than a century ago in the wake of the Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall scandals that robbed taxpayers of millions of dollars and became synonymous with political corruption.
But the DOI, one of the nation’s oldest law enforcement agencies, has been making a forceful case of late that it’s not a relic of the past.
Here are just a few of the cases the Department of Investigation has been involved in:
- The department investigated former NYPD police chief Bernard Kerik for mail fraud, wire fraud, alleging conspiracy and lying to the IRS.
- Two deadly construction accidents involving cranes from earlier in the year.
- A fire in the Deutsche Bank building in which two firefighters were killed.
- Cities employees were found faking doctors notes to get sick pay, as well as faking city parking passes.
- Issues at the Administration for Children’s Services, when “inadequacies” in the system aided in the death of 11 children.
Does the Department of Investigation get all of the credit it deserves for doing amazing work to keep New York City on the straight and narrow?
As much as Hearn tries to publicize DOI’s victories (for deterrent value as well as boosting morale), her efforts aren’t always remembered.
Recently, a local newspaper detailed a successful initiative at ACS to hire former police investigators to help caseworkers. The pairings worked. Children were being helped, plucked from potentially dangerous environments.
The article failed to mention who pushed for the hiring of these new investigators: Hearn’s DOI.
