A New Virus Moves to Center Stage--Crime. Bill Bratton Talks to Armstrong & Getty

Published Jun 16, 2021, 9:21 PM

After three decades of increased safety, crime is once again on the rise across the United States--and the topic is quickly becoming one of great political importance.

Having lead the police force in three major American cities (Boston, NYC and Los Angeles), Bill Bratton is the perfect person to talk to regarding any effort to reverse this troubling trend.

In his new book, "THE PROFESSION A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America", Bratton reflects on his law enforcement experiences, particularly in regards to policies such as "Stop and Frisk" and "Broken Windows",

And during his appearance on The Armstrong & Getty Show, Bratton offers his perspective on why some well intentioned (but clearly flawed) law enforcement policies have lead to our current condition.

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But what a pleasure this is to talk to Bill Bratton. Bill was the commissioner of the Boston Police Department of the nineties, commissioner in the New York City Police Department, chief of Los Angeles Police as well, and his new book is perhaps the perfect book for our times. The Profession, A Memoir of Community, race, and the arc of Policing in America. Bill Bratton, Bill, how are you, sir? So very well. It's great to be talking to you on the West coast. They had seven great years there at the l A p D. So it's always nice to reconnect. Awesome. Um So I noticed the other day how crime is climbing the charts like a hit record in terms of a topic of political topic. Seventy five percent of Americans believe crime is worse today than it was a year ago. And for their own local area where they live, a majority of people say crime is worse than it was a year ago. After decades of crime going down, it's going up. And people's perception of it also, well, first of all, do you agree with that and what's to be done? I certainly agree with it, And what I'm surprised about that it's not a d percent for both categories. That what had happened at the beginning of the nineties, we began a crime reversal turnaround that for thirty years, America was getting safer. There was certainly spots that were not, but New York City, my home city, homicized down overall climate percent, overall climate America down, many of the cities that you broadcast into. Uh. We're doing pretty well over that period of time, but the last couple of years, it's uh uh turned around dramatically. What's different this time is how fast it's happened, and people didn't expect that. We're focused on the coronavirus, and now that the virus is subsiding, this new virus is moving to center stage and it's going to be as difficult as the coronavirus to deal with. Well, there's a hot video making the rounds in social media yesterday out of San Francisco. Because they have decriminalized crime in San Francisco. You had a guy clearing off the shelves at the Walgreens into a trash bag, getting on his bike and out the door without anybody doing anything about it. I don't know if you saw that did not see that. But it's just one of a slew of videos in the sense of the lawlessness that politicians have created in state after state, city after city with basically prosecutors won't prosecute for shoplifting. So police are not going to make a restaurants to our owners beside themselves. And so how can you have a society whether it's not punishment for longdoing, whether it's minor like shoplifting, but in the sense of minus shoplifting, if you want a store, it's not minor to you, uh, and then it just encourages more egregious behavior that character of guarantee you'll be back in a week with a bigger shopping bag and there's nothing's going to happen to him. What do you think led to the election, especially on the West coast of some of these far left days chesso Bodine and and his sort um. Is it just that crime had gotten so low people started to think that there was no need to be tough on crime. Well, the harmony of it in terms of one of the tools used to get climbed down had been arrests, etcetera. Enforcement of quality of life crime. After the seventies and eighties, we paid no attention to it than in the nineties we began to and there was a concern that too many people had gone to jail in California. Had three strikes in your out and a lot of people went to jail for life a third seemingly minor crime. So there was this sense that, well, crime was down, let's try some alternatives. Unfortunately, the criminal justice reform movement is moving too fast, uh, with some well intended ideas that basically in practicality and reality just not working out. Relative to your das, George sources. Open Society has been funding the election of progressive das around the country. You've got a number that's certainly in California. I actually think what's going to happen. Most of them were elected during times of relatively low crime, and they're going to put their ideas into a public that had becomes somewhat complacent. If we have a couple more years like this past year, you're going to see return to the nineties with a public on the rise up and say we've had enough, let's get back to some law and auto. Yeah. I read your piece in the New York Times over the weekend pretty cool. You got featured in the New York Times book review where they ask the authors all the questions. I really enjoyed that, And actually I've started reading that nineteen thirty nine that you recommended as one of your favorite books. But you also talked to a great, great, great book, the Rise of dot Nazi Germany and then up to the World War Two. Yeah, I'm loving it so far. But you also mentioned the book Broken Windows and the influence that had on you. What described that For anybody who doesn't know what that theory is about, Broken windows is a theory articulated by George Kelling, great friend and mentor recently passed, and Jim Wilson passed and over years ago. Uh that I'm probably one of the principal implements are practitioners of and adherence to. Broken Windows basically is the idea that if you don't take care of small things like small crimes on the street, that you create an atmosphere of increased lawlessness. For example of shoplifting you just talked about, if you don't deal with that, that guy is going to come back and just keep coming back. You've got to stop it. It's like a child. If you don't correct behavior that child, that child is going to go out of control. You don't weed you gotten, the guiden is going to get out of control and basically destroy even the strongest tree. So we practice that, but the challenges policing is to do it in an appropriate degree. It's like a doctor treating you for an illness. You don't want to be overtreated. And there's a lot of attacks on broken windows now because we felt it was unfairly impactful on minority neighborhoods with so much of the crime and just sort of occur unfortunately, And so I'm a great believer in it. It's community policing. The essence of community policing is partnership with the community to identify what is it the community wants the police to address, and how do we address it together, and what's the goal thevention? And so community policing invoking windows are one and the same thing. When the community calls you to come in and deal with the drunk on the corner of the gang in the corner of the barbecue has gone out of control of the prostitute, that's broken windows. That's fixing those windows that are creating fear in the neighborhood, which leads us brilliantly into the next phase of the conversation with Bill Bratton. His book is The Profession, A Memoir of community, Race, and the arc of policing in America. Where do we start to heal the distrust and and out and out dislike between much of urban black America and our nation's police departments. It can be done, U. One of the reasons I went to New York shoose me to Los Angeles. The primary reason was I believe that in that city that had one of the worst racial situations between police and black community in the nation, a police force that had louie and at war with this black community for fifty years, that the issue of police in race entwined. You can't separate the two. You're never going to solve the race problems to solve the issue of police dealing with the race issues. And so in l A. I purposely went there with the belief that if we could fix the problem there at least ameliorated significantly, there would be hope for the rest of the country. And we did it. By two thousand nine, after seven years, crime was down dramatically. We increased the size of the police force, increased minority representation, and the race issues in the city. That city did not have a significant race racial disturbance from two thousand to to the George Floyd event George Floyd, So there had been a growth of trust between the black community and the l A p D l A times that the joy lies. When I left the city in two thousand nine after we finished implementing the federal Consent Decree, that finally a kana had been turned on race relations in Los Angeles, it was quite an accolade. So it can be done, to be quite a lot of hard work. And uh, I write about it this in the book. There was a community active at Sweet Alice down at Watts And when I was leaving, she said it to me, Chief, you know why I would like you so much? And I said, no. Sweet Alice wires that she says, because you see us, you really see us. Uh. And what she was saying was that, Uh, to basically solve problems, you have to see each other and see each other's perspective about problems. It can be done. It's a lot of hard work. You need patients, but it can be done. I know. We only got about a minute left. But a constant refrain from the left is we have too many people behind bars. Build schools, not prisons. I feel like we need to have as many people behind bars. Are committee crimes, so that's the correct number. But do we have too many people in jail? We far a period of time, did put too many people in jail. There a lot of people who went to jail for drug offenses. My own state, New York Locofella gun laws, alcofolla laws, uh, California three strikes you about a lot of people could be treated for a narcotics instead of being in jail. A lot of people could also who had committed those broken windows minor crimes be sent to alternative types of rehabilitation rather than prison. So did we over in consplerrate? We did a lesson learned. But you're correct that a lot of people have to be in jail. In New York state, eighty per cent of the people in state prison of the f a violent crime. So this over and concelration myth. You don't go to jail for fair evasion or shoplifting in New York. You go to jail for violent crime. And even then it's hard to get you in jail at prison sometimes. So it's a it's a hashtag that's been driving a lot of public policy and a lot of sentiments, but it was based on some reality, particularly back in the nineties. The book is the professional memoir of community race in the ark of policing in America. Bill Bratton, Chief, Hey, it's great to speak with you. Thanks for the time. Good luck with the book. Nice start, good luck with the drawt out there guys, Thank you. Um, you know it's interesting, Uh, I don't want anybody in jail who doesn't need to be in jail, absolutely right, hardly the worst thing could happen when you're when you lean libertarian and have somebody behind bars that doesn't belong there. But it's kind of interesting that we had the lowest crime rate in US history at the time that we uh, we were over jailing people. Um, I don't want to over jail people, but crime was really low, right, absolutely well, And this gets back to the Joe Getty uh principle of society's veering between the guardrails and never realizing when they have it right in the sweet spot. When you feel like we're over incarcerating people, Look there's no crime. The the urge is to listen to people who got want to go way to the other side, and and they are the loudest, most persuasive voices. And those who say, look, let's let's move a little carefully, let's tweak it a little bit, let's be careful what we do, they're just not nearly as exciting, and so it's just really difficult. It we're constantly over steering as a society. Plus, you create a new generation every generation, and the new generation grows up without crime, and they don't understand what's the big deal because they didn't didn't live in a time where people getting wapped on the head walking down the street. And plus the lefty please of compassion and healing and the rest of it really appeal to the young heart. Uh. You know, as Churchill said, if you're twenty and not a liberal, you have no heart. Um. I thought his stuff on Sweet Alice and you See Us was just a great point. And how you know, the cops have to be in the communities. The communities have to trust the cops, and there's a lot of healing that has to take place, and it's a lot of work, and you know, I would also point out that if you defund the police, you're gonna cut training, and you're gonna cut initiatives like that.

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