Last week, Bill Bratton was sworn in as New York City’s police commissioner, as part of the administration of new mayor, Bill de Blasio. David Halle, Andrew A. Beveridge, and Sydney Beveridge, take a closer look at Bill Bratton’s policy success in reducing crime, in both New York and Los Angeles, through the use of the COMPSTAT program and its successors. They write that, now that he has returned to New York, Bratton’s challenge will be to keep crime rates low while reducing the widespread hatred of the police among black residents that has been created by ‘Stop & Frisk’ policies

Beveridge, Andrew A.

Beveridge, Sydney

Halle, David

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.ukhttp://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/01/09/as-newly-returned-new-york-police-commissioner-bill-brattons-first-task-will-be-to-regain-the-trust-of-the-citys-most-heavily-policed/Bill Bratton, Photo by Policy Exchange. CC 2.0 via Flickr.As newly returned New York Police Commissioner, BillBratton’s first task will be to regain the trust of the city’s mostheavily policed groups.Last week, Bill Bratton was sworn in as New York City’s police commissioner, as part of theadministration of new mayor, Bill de Blasio. David Halle, Andrew A. Beveridge , and SydneyBeveridge, take a closer look at Bill Bratton’s policy success in reducing crime, in both New Yorkand Los Angeles, through the use of the COMPSTAT program and its successors. They write that,now that he has returned to New York, Bratton’s challenge will be to keep crime rates low whilereducing the widespread hatred of the police among black residents that has been created by‘Stop & Frisk’ policies. Incoming New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has just chosen Bill Bratton as the city’s PoliceCommissioner. Bratton returns to the top post he occupied from 1994 to 1996 where he played acritical role in police reform in New York, and then as Los Angeles Police Commissioner from2002 to 2009. Bratton’s stint in Los Angeles is a key reason why community-police relations thereseem in better shape than New York’s. Bratton achieved this in Los Angeles while also presidingover a massive drop in crime. It is this apparent ability both to reduce crime and improvecommunity-police relations that will now be tested in New York where outgoing mayor Bloombergand Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly argue that their Stop and Frisk policy, which criticsargue has alienated many in the black and Latino community, is vital for keeping crime low.How did Bratton get his Los Angeles results? For sure the reasons that crime has plummeted inboth cities to levels not seen since the early 1960s are a complex mix, from changing policetactics to long-term demographic shifts to the ebbs and flows of drug epidemics. Still, Brattonintroduced the famous COMPSTAT program in interestingly different forms in both cities, and thisis one key reason for the differences incommunity-police relations. COMPSTATuses geographical mapping of crime tomake strategic decisions about officerdeployment, and sets police divisionbenchmarks for crime reduction. Underthe NYPD version of COMPSTAT, eachdivision captain was basically responsiblefor crime trends and for formulating aresponse in his or her police area.Performance was noted in monthly,central command staff meetings, but whatwas noted was primarily crime trends,and how to deal with these was left tolocal commanders.When Bratton was appointed LAPDpolice chief in 2002, he institutedCOMPSTAT Plus (i.e. the LA version).This created a centralized audit team ofLAPD commanders, who then worked with each local police division to develop its own strategic plan to meetcrime reduction goals. This was a sea change for the LAPD and also for COMPSTAT. Previous LAPD approaches2012 march on NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk policy Credit: j-No (CreativeCommons BY NC ND)to reducing crime, dating back to the 1960s Parker administration, relied on sending specialized units and tacticalresponses to local divisions. Never before had reducing crime focused on a locally based, community-wideapproach that relied primarily on line-officers and command staff, in consultation with a central audit division. LosAngeles witnessed a significant reduction in crime rates after the implementation of COMSTAT Plus, as New Yorkhad under the original COMPSTAT (i.e. the version without a central audit), but the LAPD’s central audit versioninjected a concern for local police-community relations since Bratton has long been an enthusiast of the “BrokenWindows” theory of crime that argues that police should focus not just on serious crime but on the quality ofneighborhood life including police-community relations. The claim is that in so doing serious crime will anyway bereduced. In implementing COMPSTAT Plus, Bratton clearly felt that local commanders could not be trusted toimplement a crime reduction program, including Broken Windows, without central intervention.A second, highly relevant difference between the two cities has to do with the monitoring of consent decrees,which also revolves around variations in central monitoring, though in this case from the courts. The quality ofpolice-community relations has long been a key issue in both cities, and accusations of unconstitutional policinghave resulted in major civil litigation, with both cities operating under consent decrees. Still a key reason theNYPD seems to have reduced abuses less under the consent decree than its LA counterpart is that the NYPD,unlike the LAPD, was not subject to court-ordered monitoring of its behavior during this period. In 2009, LosAngeles emerged from nine years under a consent decree. In lifting the decree, the US District Court Judge noted:“The LAPD has become the national and international policing standard for activities that range from audits tohandling of the mentally ill to many aspects of training to risk assessment of police officers and more.” The LAPDhas entered into new partnerships with various community organizations, and in recent polls nearly eight percentof LA residents expressed strong approval for the performance of the department. Remarkably, this included 76percent and 68 percent of the black and Latino respondents, respectively.New York City, by contrast, emerged from the Danielscivil legislation and consent decree from 2003 to2007, which did not involve court-ordered monitoringof the NYPD’s behavior. The NYPD becameimmediately mired in three new lawsuits allegingracial discrimination and a pattern of unconstitutionalstreet stops. The NYPD has intensified its spectrumof Order Maintenance Policing tactics, includingtrespass enforcement in public housing, street stops(also known as “Stop and Frisk”), and misdemeanormarijuana enforcement. All three approaches have ledto litigation against the NYPD. The divided responseof the City’s diverse communities to the Stop andFrisk program, the centerpiece of the NYPD strategy,shows the depth of the breech between citizens andpolice along racial lines. In a recent poll, white votersapproved 59 to 36 percent, while disapproval was 68to 27 percent among black voters and 52 to 43percent among Hispanic voters.Bill de Blasio made criticism of Stop and Frisk acenterpiece of his mayoral campaign, and hadnothing positive to say about thepractice. Interestingly, Bratton now insists that Stopand Frisk is integral to effective policing. He says hewill not abandon the policy, but operate it in a mannermore respectful of blacks and Latinos and more often in white neighborhoods than under CommissionerKelly/Mayor Bloomberg. He has not said so, but it seems likely that NYPD police behavior will be centrallymonitored under Bratton to a far greater extent than it has been. The challenge, of course, is to keep New York’scrime rate low while reducing the widespread hatred of the police among black residents especially. We will seewhat new COMPSTAT and other initiatives he implements in that effort, perhaps setting precedents for policing incities nationwide.A second challenge facing Bratton is getting on with his new boss. Bratton’s first stint as New York’sCommissioner ended when mayor Giuliani fired Bratton out of jealousy because Bratton appeared on the coverof Time magazine for his achievements in reducing New York crime. Bratton and Giuliani both have notoriouslylarge egos. Still, de Blasio’s tolerance here remains to be tested.In their chapter in the new book (which inspired this article), New York and Los Angeles: The Uncertain Future, theauthors, Jeffrey Fagan and John McDonald, conclude by writing, “Many citizens in New York City, including thosemost heavily policed, await the next mayor and police commissioner to see whether a new era of reform can beginthat includes citizen trust and satisfaction as an outcome as equally worthy of addressing as the crime rate.” Holdon for a fascinating ride.This article originally appeared at the OUPblog. Please read our comments policy before commenting. Note:  This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of USApp– American Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics. Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1cRpgLo_________________________About the authors David Halle - University of California, Los AngelesDavid Halle is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also anadjunct professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and the authorof America’s Working Man: Work, Home, and Politics among Blue-Collar PropertyOwners and Inside Culture: Art and Class in the American Home._Andrew A. Beveridge  - CUNYAndrew A. Beveridge is Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate School andUniversity Center of the City University of New York.__Sydney Beveridge – Social ExplorerSydney Beveridge is Media and Content Editor at Social Explorer, Inc.CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 2014 LSE USAPP

As newly returned New York Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton’s first task will be to regain the trust of the city’s most heavily policed groups

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