
The series focuses on life in Greenwich Village's 12th Precinct station house. Initially, it looks at Capt. Barney Miller and his work and home life, but it gradually becomes about the officers of the precinct, including always-on-the-verge-of-retirement Detective Fish.

The financially ailing city plans to save money by closing the precinct; store owners begin paying protection money.

A pregnant shoplifter goes into labor; Fish must stop a suicidal man from ringing in the new year by jumping.

A lonely woman accuses Dietrich of making indecent advances; Yemena arrests a rabbi for running a gambling operation in his synagogue.

A gun-toting parolee wants to return to prison claiming that the regimentation of penal life hasn't prepared him for the outside world.