William J. Bratton will only get it right as NY’s police commissioner if Sandinista-loving Mayor Bill de Blasio does not interfere with police operations.
BRATTON’S RETURN AS NEW YORK’S POLICE COMMISSIONER
By Eli B. Silverman and John A. Eterno
The New York Times
December 18, 2013
William J. Bratton has repeatedly promised to “get it right” in his second tenure as police commissioner of New York City. Based on his previous record in New York and elsewhere, there is every reason to have confidence in this prediction.
Mr. Bratton’s 1994 introduction of CompStat — developing crime-fighting strategies based on statistical data — has rightly been hailed as a significant policing innovation. Nevertheless, our research has disclosed the unraveling of CompStat under Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as it descended into a top-down, quota-driven instrument focusing on numbers regardless of community consequences.
The department’s lack of transparency has obscured the deterioration of CompStat’s primary ingredient — accurate and timely intelligence, which is essential to successful crime fighting and citizen satisfaction. Yet the current leadership’s push to present crime statistics only in the most favorable light has contributed to the underreporting of crime and the downgrading of serious felony crimes into lesser crime categories.
If community trust and confidence are restored, then the police will more accurately record crime and citizens will feel more comfortable reporting criminal or terrorist activity. This is an important road to a more transparent, effective and citizen-responsive police department.
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