Word: bratton
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...past, Bratton had produced near miraculous results in Boston, paving the way for a steep drop in crime before he moved to New York City, where, as police commissioner from 1994 to 1996, he presided over a 50% drop in homicides. But his techniques--putting more cops on the street, making individual officers more accountable for offenses in their neighborhoods and shortening the civilian-complaint process--have been controversial. The U.S. as a whole experienced steep drops in crime in the '90s. But even as cities across the nation hired more cops and jailed more young men, many academics disputed...
...seconds later the smile is gone, and Bratton is back on message. "We have a domestic-terrorist problem here--gangs," he says with the urgent conviction of a televangelist. Indeed, a resurgence in gang activity was one of the main reasons Los Angeles' homicide rate rose 51% in three years, making it the murder capital of the U.S. in 2002 with 658 killings. And Bratton announced they were "job No. 1" after Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn hired him in October...
...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...
...William Bratton strides into evening roll call at the police station in the Rampart section of Los Angeles, and the 50 officers in the room break into applause. The police chief cracks a smile. It is the week before Christmas, murders in Los Angeles are down 22% from the previous year, and the man whose crime-busting tactics cut New York City's homicide rate almost a decade ago, landing him on the cover of this magazine, is once again being hailed as a savior...
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...