PROVIDENCE — Cliff Monteiro, who used to be a Providence police officer, remembers years past, when city police and state police did not get along.

Monteiro, now president of the Providence branch of the NAACP, recalled yesterday, “There was always a little rivalry, a little petty jealousy. In fact, as a Providence police officer you couldn’t even become a state trooper if you wanted.”

The fact that it is a new day was evident yesterday when the city police and the state police announced the resumption of joint city-state uniformed patrols in Providence for 10 weeks during the holiday season. Six city officers and six troopers are assigned to the Neighborhood Response Teams, riding in pairs Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

It is the fourth time that the teams will be deployed, and Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman pronounced the program an unqualified success. During the last deployment, in the summer, the teams made 526 arrests and issued 683 summonses over 10 weeks, according to Providence Sgt. Glenn Cassidy, who coordinates the Providence half of the partnership.

A “unified front,” with officers in different uniforms working together, surprises and impresses wrongdoers and sometimes troublemaking nightclub-goers from out of town, Esserman said. It tells those groups that they may be checked out en route to and when leaving the city, and that the two police forces are sharing information.

Although the team approach was adopted in large part to address violence, Esserman said there has been an incidental benefit: Vehicle-related crime such as auto theft has dipped in Providence during the times that the teams have been out.

“I know it’s different having the state police [patrolling] in a city” in uniform, said state police Supt. Col. Steven Pare. “We’re there to help, in collaboration.”

“We’re thrilled to be back in the city. It’s unprecedented,” the colonel said. While Esserman enjoys the extra manpower that he receives, Pare said the uniformed troopers enjoy working in an urban setting for a change. Pare noted that while joint patrols are unusual, the two police forces have been cooperating for a much longer time on drug and fugitive task forces and on homeland security.

The announcement, in a conference room in the chief’s office at the Public Safety Complex, was attended by U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente and other dignitaries including Monteiro.

“In talking with my colleagues around the country,” said Corrente, “they are frequently surprised to learn that we have uniformed patrols out there with the state police and the city patrolling together. They’ve never heard of any such thing.

“I’m quick to tell them that may in fact explain why our numbers [crime in Providence] are going in one direction and their numbers are going in a different direction.” Corrente said unusually smooth cooperation among federal, state and local law enforcement authorities underlies a decline in crime in Providence.

While Esserman said the joint patrols are a winner, Pare said he is not prepared to make them permanent.

“It’s something new. I don’t have the personnel to put troopers in every community in the state,” he said. “We’re going through this trial period, if you will, to see how effective it is.”