As the city gets ready for a new police commissioner, some have wondered out loud if he will simply push the same agenda as William Bratton. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.

Outgoing Police Commissioner William Bratton says his longtime friend Chief James O'Neill is the right person to keep the NYPD headed in the right direction. Criminal justice professor Maki Haberfeld says she agrees.  

"I think it is an excellent choice, knowing him personally, knowing him as a police officer over the years, seeing him action, seeing what he believes in," Haberfeld said.

But the professor, the co-director of NYPD police studies at John Jay College, says O'Neill will not be Bratton's carbon copy.

"Each and every commissioner over the last 30 years, as I have been watching the NYPD and researching the NYPD, has his own impact," Haberfeld said. "When you yourself become a boss, it is a new story. It is basically a basically new opportunity that I am sure Commissioner O'Neill will take advantage of."

Under Bratton, the NYPD continued to reduce crime while accelerating the shift away from stop-and-frisk policing, with improving police-community relations a City Hall priority. O'Neill is expected to place more focus on building closer relationships between police and the neighborhoods they patrol.

"Bratton, I think, was more broken windows-oriented than community-oriented. O'Neill has an opportunity to focus more on the community and less on the broken windows," Haberfeld said. "But you know, what happens around the country is also very relevant, and you cannot ignore it."

She believes the neighborhood policing program that O'Neill started will stay at the top of the agenda.

That's good news for Betty Crawford, the longtime president of the 44th Precinct community council. She's known the soon-to-be-commissioner since he commanded the 44 in the south Bronx 12 years ago.

"He would listen to our complaints and all our problems, what we had," Crawford said.

"We never had a meeting and comeback that he didn't have an answer for our complaints."

Even though O'Neill will be the commissioner, he will have to march in step with mayor de Blasio's agenda.

"Collaborate, cooperate and work with the mayor, if this is something you don't belive in your career will be very short."