Word: bratton
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Bratton has little time for such theories. "Economics and demographics are influences, not causes. It is a great disservice to the poor to say they lose jobs and so become criminals," he says. "The penicillin for dealing with crime is cops. I thought I had already proved this. Criminologists who say it is economics or the weather or some other thing are crazy...
Continued success in Los Angeles will give Bratton additional bragging rights and the kind of fame he clearly enjoys. After being forced out of his New York City job by what Bratton claims was then Mayor Rudy Giuliani's dislike of his high media profile, Bratton, now 56, went into the private sector, setting up his own security consulting firm, the Bratton Group, and giving speeches around the world, particularly in South America. But he missed being in the limelight in the U.S. and even explored a run for mayor of New York in 2001. Then came the 9/11 attacks...
...Bratton's vision of justice is old-fashioned. Old Testament--style old-fashioned. At a press conference in the city's gang-ridden 77th division two days after the Rampart roll call, the chief told the story of Laudeina Salazar, 39, who was decorating her Christmas tree on Dec. 12 when a stray bullet "shot by some thug" passed through her front door and killed her. Bratton's message to gangsters with guns was simple: "You use a gun, we're going to put you in jail--in federal jail. You are going to be 1,000 miles from here...
Reducing gang crime in the 77th was one of Bratton's priorities when he took command of the department 15 months ago. He instructed his commanders to get more patrol officers out on the street, make detectives work late nights and weekends, enlist the help of federal law-enforcement agencies like the FBI and the DEA, conduct more search-warrant and surveillance missions and generally get in the gangsters' faces more. Frequently, he would turn up at a late-night crime scene and observe how his officers handled investigations...
Statistically, the results are impressive. Homicides in the 77th dropped 45%, to just 65, last year. But the precinct's experience also provides a case study of the effect that Bratton's more concerted policing can have on a neighborhood suffering from high crime rates. TIME went on night patrols with officers of the 77th at regular intervals over the past 12 months, and it was clear the cops were becoming a lot more aggressive, routinely frisking suspected gangsters on the street on the basis of little more than how they were dressed. But the positive effects are rippling through...