Collaborative Policing June 2014 Voiceover 00:00 This is The Beat, a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation. Katherine McQuay 00:08 This is Katherine McQuay with the COPS Office. With us today is Commissioner Bill Bratton of NYPD, the New York City Police Department. Commissioner Bratton, thank you for your time. Commissioner Bill Bratton 00:17 Pleasure to be with you. Katherine 00:18 Thank you, and I want to ask you first about a term we heard you used, collaborative policing. Can you tell me what that term means? Bill 00:26 Collaborative policing, I think, is the natural outgrowth of the term community policing we began to use in the 1990s. Community policing puts emphasis on partnership, problem solving, and prevention. Collaboration implies an even more intimate relationship that, fortunately, we have established partnerships. We are very focused on problem-solving policing. We have come back to the understanding that policing is prevention first and foremost. With that acceptance of the tenets of community policing to make it more effective, collaboration speaks very much to much more inclusion, much more transparency, and much more bridge building across the silos—silos in an organization, silos between community and political leadership and the police. Collaboration is just a more intimate form of community policing. Katherine 01:27 Can you talk to us about what you see happening in the months ahead in terms of relationships between your department and communities of color. I know that’s already been an issue you’ve taken on and seemingly with great progress. I wondered if you could talk about that. Bill 01:43 I think we’ve just gone past the 100 day mark, both myself and Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who appointed me. Certainly, he campaigned on that issue of moving very quickly to improve those relationships. I like to think that in a very short period of time, we have done that. The reduction in the use of stop, question, and frisk—more effective use of stop, question, and frisk—that has been a big help in that regard. But also going back to the term collaboration where we are really reaching out to communities in a big way, communities that felt they had not been acknowledged or recognized, whether it’s the Muslim community, whether it’s communities of color. I have three new deputy commissioner positions that have been created. One is a deputy commissioner for collaboration; a deputy commissioner for strategic initiatives (effectively that person is creating social media for the NYPD—blogs, Facebook websites, Tweets, Twitter); and then I have a deputy commissioner for administration. Her role is to improve the collaboration within the organization with our unions and our fraternal organizations of which we have 32. And as an example of what she has done, we have opened up police headquarters, our auditoriums, and meeting rooms to those organizations to hold their meetings. So every one of them is holding their delegate meeting, their fraternal meetings in police headquarters. Katherine 03:12 The COPS Office recently held a forum, which we were fortunate enough to have you attend, and you shared the stage with Reverend Al Sharpton. Both of you seemed to have a wonderful relationship, and I thought back to 20 years ago. That seemed symbolic of the change in the community and the department as a whole. Could you speak to that? Bill 03:31 Sure. Policing is constantly evolving. We are not today where we were 20 years ago or 100 years ago. But you hope that the evolution builds on strengths and things that work and recognizes and discards those things that don’t work or those things that work against collaboration. Relationship building is essential for successful collaboration. And I think, referencing Al Sharpton, Mr. Sharpton has evolved in the sense that he and the movement that he is very proud to be a part of have evolved in a very good way, in the sense of there is a maturity that has occurred, a maturation. In policing also, in the sense that we hopefully appreciate now the importance of working with our communities, not just for them, particularly with minority communities. The idea of legitimacy, of due process, and also respect, those are very important issues in the minority communities. Mr. Sharpton gets that. I get it. American policing and American police leadership gets that. Katherine 04:48 You mentioned something interesting. You talked about the pendulum swinging and the desire to get away from some of the, if you will, tougher policies of the 90s. How do you see that playing out in NYPD? Bill 05:00 The comment I made about the pendulum swinging is, I’ve been in the business now for 44 years. I’ve seen it swing back and forth several times. In the 70s, as a result, in reaction to the turmoil from the 60s, it swung very far to the liberal side, if you will. There was a lot of movement of policing away from the role of prevention to response. That didn’t work. By the 1980s, we were in freefall. Crime was rising dramatically, relations with minority communities were deteriorating, and police were just not effective. In the 90s, we came back, the pendulum swung again, back to a focus once again on prevention and embrace of community policing. Also for a period of time, there was a get tough on crime. A lot of that had to do with higher rates of incarceration; a lot of it had to do with use of new technology, CompStat systems. The pendulum probably swung too far to the right, if you will, and then we have come to recognize now that we put too many people in jail for the wrong reasons, particularly around the issue of drugs. Also, that some of our policies and our laws had disparate impact on minorities. The idea that powdered cocaine was treated differently than crack cocaine, and crack cocaine—used significantly in black communities—led to higher incarcerations of blacks. So we learned a lot in the 90s, a lot that was good and a lot that also was negative. The pendulum is swinging back again, I think, in a good way. We have improved our trust with our communities. We have improved our professionalization and our skills. We have an understanding that you can’t arrest your way out of the problem. One of my captains in Los Angeles when I was there used a phrase, “the future is not in handcuffs.” And that’s a police department that, for years, its unofficial motto was “hook ’em and book ’em.” That’s no longer the motto, unofficial or official, of the LAPD. Katherine 07:08 Some of the things I’ve read are great support for everything you are saying. Some comments fear that, “Oh my gosh, crime has been so low, the city is so safe.” If the pendulum starts to swing back, are we going to see crime increase? Bill 07:24 I actually don’t think you will see crime increase dramatically. I’ll speak specifically to New York where I have direct responsibility for. The challenge now is going to be to maintain the low crime rates where the majority of the people in the city feel safe, that the city feels safe. It is safe. It’s reflected in tourism—56 million tourists. It’s reflected in polling. But there are still pockets of crime whose levels have been reduced dramatically from that of the 80s and early-90s but, with the lower crime rates, would still be deemed unsafe and not feeling safe. So the challenge is to continue going after those cancers, if you will. Recognizing that the city as a whole is a much safer place, the challenge now will be to maintain low crime rates. Dramatic decreases in crime are probably going to be unlikely. I think we have the capability with CompStat and predictive policing, to prevent crime from going up dramatically across the city as it did in the 70s and 80s. I think you can take the New York comments and take it to the nation as a whole. Some cities experience periodic increases, spikes, in crime but have the ability to get in like a firefighter responding to a fire, put some water on it, and eventually put the fire out. Similarly, policing has that effect. We’re also recognizing there have to be societal changes in terms of addressing issues of race, of disparate impact, of legitimacy of policing, to build trust once again in communities. We’re at a point that to lower crime further, we’re going to have even better relationships, particularly in our minority communities, which are still bearing the brunt of the crime that remains. Katherine 09:11 With 100 days behind you, how do you feel? Bill 09:13 Pretty good! So far, so good. Knock on wood. Katherine 09:17 Great. Super. Thank you, sir, for your time. Bill 09:20 Pleasure. All the best. Voiceover: Beat Exit 09:22 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems. Voiceover: Disclaimer 09:38 The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.