What's the Mollen Commission?
The Mollen Commission is formally known as The City of New York Commission to Investigate Allegations of Police Corruption and the Anti-Corruption Procedures of the Police Department. Former judge Milton Mollen was appointed in July 1992 by then New York City mayor David N. Dinkins to investigate corruption in the New York City Police Department. Mollen's mandate was to examine and investigate “the nature and extent of corruption in the Department; evaluate the departments procedures for preventing and detecting that corruption; and recommend changes and improvements to those procedures”. Mollen issued a report in July 1994. The conclusion: Today's corruption is not the corruption of Knapp Commission days. Corruption then was largely a corruption of accommodation, of criminals and police officers giving and taking bribes, buying and selling protection. Corruption was, in its essence, consensual. Today's corruption is characterized by brutality, theft, abuse of authority and active police criminality. The Mollen Commission believed that the creation of an independent commission to monitor the anti-corruption activities of the Police Department, and help keep the NYPD vigilant in this area, would help break these cycles of corruption. Accordingly, the Mayor,with the support of the Police Commissioner, created The Commission to Combat Police Corruption on February 27, 1995 by Executive Order No. 18.