The New York State Laws subject area
One of the five subject areas is a sampling of the Penal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Vehicle and Traffic Law and Family Court Act. All four are published free by the State, which is what makes this examination preparable.
What the guide says
The Department describes this area as testing knowledge of the laws in effect during the current year that law enforcement personnel may encounter in the course of their day-to-day work, and names the four bodies of law it samples.
Its own worked example is a definitional question: robbery under Penal Law § 160.00 is the forcible stealing of property of any value, with no threshold attached.
No reading list, and no book to buy
Searched across the whole guide, the words ISBN, edition, textbook, publisher and reading list appear zero times, and so do the names of the trade publishers whose books other states' promotional examinations are scored on.
That matters commercially as well as practically: an examination scored on published statute can be prepared from the statute, and one scored on a named copyrighted text cannot be prepared without it.
Which year's law applies
The announcements state a date, and they do not all state the same one. Oneida County's 2026 announcement says the questions test the laws in effect on January 1, 2026; the City of Watertown, for a test on the same day, says January 1, 2025.
That disagreement is real and unresolved, so no page here states a single year as applying everywhere. Read your own announcement.