'I like to think of myself as a doctor'

INTERVIEW / William Bratton

"I like to think of myself as a doctor,” said William Bratton, visiting Rio de Janeiro in a tour of Latin America, the former chief of Police of New York and Los Angeles, credited with a significant drop in crime in both cities by modernizing the police force. “In the 60s, 70s, and 80s American police was reactive, priding itself on how many arrests, how many convictions made in court, how many crimes solved, how quickly we responded when a crime occurred. But the fact is that reactive policing will not bring crime rates down, for that you need preventive policing, that is how we turned the situation around.”

Bratton was credited with putting CompStat (computer statistics) into practice in New York back in the 90s, “after three decades when little was done, we embraced a new philosophy of community policing, establishing partnerships among criminal justice agencies and with communities.” First and foremost, according to Bratton, efficient policing contacts the communities they serve to ask them what their priorities are, create a diagnosis of the crime situation, draw up crime maps, and enlist problem solving strategies for crime prevention in which police captains are held accountable. “It is definitely not a ‘one solution fits all’ situation. Every community is different, has its own fears, crimes and disorders, its own identity, that is what law enforcement has to work with” said Bratton.

Taking his expertise outside the confines of his native United States, and beyond circle of the men in blue, Mr. Bratton has entered private enterprise and is currently Chair of Altegrity Risk International. Bratton feels he has a lot to bring to law enforcement in Latin America, having recently published an article entitled “Eight steps to reduce crime” outlining his philosophy at the Americas Quarterly. Mr. Bratton was enthusiastic about progress made in the police force in Colombia, and the recent 'highland police units' as he called Brazil's Pacifying Police Units, a pilot project in community policing set in the heart of shantytowns on the steep inclines of hills in Rio.

Bratton says that the first duty of a democracy is to guarantee the security of its citizens, and thinking of Latin America he specifies that it means police must be consistent everywhere and provide safety for all citizens no matter where they live. As for zero tolerance, “it's the result of a misunderstanding, there was never such a thing,” said Bratton, “the only place for zero tolerance is for police corruption.” He believes Latin America has a long way to go before defeating corruption, but “it is a question of taking the first steps. “In Los Angeles, for example, we have 500 officers out of a force of 9000 dedicated exclusively to investigating police misconduct.” More in the exclusive interview given to Comunidad Segura:

You have compared yourself to a doctor, could you explain?

I work making diagnoses, and having to find the right “dosage” in crime fighting. My work in both New York and Los Angeles was in many respects setting priorities and seeing what synergy we could get to obtain the best results with what are invariably limited resources. In New York I narrowed it down to three elements that we had to work together, which were: guns and gun violence; gun violence associated to illegal drug sales; and finally youth violence. In Los Angeles I had fewer resources, and was forced to find ways to generate more impact, so it meant creating more partnerships with various government agencies. Like a doctor who needs to stabilize a patient in critical condition, a decision has to be made as to which problem to attack first. This may mean, for example, in the case of a favela, that the police needs ensure the community will trust it.

How do you feel about Zero Tolerance, has it had its time?

It never had its time. Zero tolerance was associated with my term in New York, and it has been misunderstood, the only thing we have zero tolerance for is police corruption. There will always be some types of crime and disorder, the idea of having zero tolerance for say, graffiti sends out the wrong message, the police will never have the resources to enforce zero tolerance. The term became much more commonly used in the 1990s because a British government official visiting New York heard it and misunderstood how it was being applied, (he thought it was being used for all the things we were working on at the time, graffiti, prostitution, quality of life) and he took it back to England and said 'we need to have zero tolerance'. It is not a term I have ever used other than for police corruption.

What is wrong with trying to make police more efficient by using numbers of arrests, convictions and forensic successes?

All that is what I call reactive policing and it failed because it will not reduce levels of fear or crime. I can talk about New York and Los Angeles. We developed a system of accountability called CompStat (short for computer statistics), that incorporates crime data in policing strategy. Crime mapping is very important, it allows you to know where crime is occurring so you can allocate police resources; you can see where crime is beginning to spike, and act quickly while it is still at 2 or 3 crimes instead of finding out after 20 or 30. Our crime accountability systems are used to measure police performance to tell how well police captains respond to crime. For our system to work we had to decentralize the police and act with each community according to their priorities, respond to their specific fears.

Is it possible to do away with corruption?

It is possible. We have it very significantly under control in the US, there will be individual officers or small groups of officers, but the systemic corruption of the 50s and 60s is gone. The issue in Latin America is that corruption here is still believed to be very systemic; the fact the public believes it to be widespread affects its trust in the police. Particularly when you have widespread minor corruption, it undermines the credibility not only of the police but of the government.

What steps does one take against corruption?

Police officers in the US are paid good salaries, it is respected. In Los Angeles we have almost 500 officers out of a force of 9000 who do nothing but investigate allegations of police corruption and inappropriate use of force. You cannot break the law, we tell them: 'you are here to enforce the law, if you don’t; we are going to find you, arrest you, put you in jail. If you are corrupt, if you are abusive, racist, at the very least we are going to fire you'.

We have a significant screening process before you become a police officer that includes background investigations, psychological examinations, lie detectors, and polygraphs; it is not easy to become a detective in the US. We train our officers and pay them very well. We are also transparent in our investigations; we arrest police officers publicly and fire officers publicly. I like to say about this that you get what you pay for.

How important is it for a police officer to see his job as a career?

Very important. Colombia for example, has over the past decades created systems that show that police officers are valued, they pay them well, they train them very well, they provide good pensions when they retire, good medical care, housing and schooling for their children. When the government invests in the police it can then say it has no tolerance for corruption. A very poor salary like I remember was true for Brazilian police officers back in the 90s, the last time I came to Brazil, is almost like saying people are expected to go and make money on the side.  The police in America are firm members of the middle class. This allows us to have zero tolerance for corruption.

This also addresses excesses committed by the police?

By improving the working and living conditions of police officers it also allows you to focus on human rights offenses, you are able to recruit police that you can really train and supervise not to engage in human rights violations. There is the Chinese saying of a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first steps.

Along with having the data and interacting with communities, you also mentioned that law enforcement agencies also need to work together “seamlessly”

One of the issues that make policing more difficult here is the fact that in Brazil your military police are totally separate from the civil police, so to solve a crime they have to work together. And by all accounts they do not always work together well, the military police has minimal education and civil police are lawyers, so there is a class conflict.

In the US all detectives and police chiefs start off as police officers first, in your system it would be impossible for an enlisted police become chief of police. In our system, as I moved up the ranks of the department I had an appreciation of all the jobs in the department, and it allowed for much more seamless operations. Here you would only change that system with great difficulty, as best I could tell Rio is dedicated to ensure both forces work together well. Coordination is an important part of good policing.

Will you be providing consulting services for security during the Olympics?

We are available for that, if there is that interest. We are hopefully going to submit several proposals where we think we could be of assistance. The good news for Rio de Janeiro is that there are a lot of great ideas already in process, I am very impressed with how much progress has being made in a short period of time, on improving the efficiency of the police, the effort of taking the police into the favelas through the 8 or 10 Pacifying Police Units (UPPs). It reinforces the need to having the police working with and for the people, instead of against them.

Photo: Márcia Farias/Viva Favela