BRATTON'S NEW CHALLENGE WILL NEW YORK STYLE POLICING WORK IN THE CITY OF ANGELS?

Byline: Adrian Moore 

ACCOUNTABILITY isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when you think of the Los Angeles Police Department. A string of scandals and the excruciatingly slow pace of questionable reforms have plagued the department. As a result, many city residents lack faith in the Police Department. And rightfully so. Last year, a Reason Foundation study found that, among the largest U.S. cities, the LAPD has the least effect on crime per police officer.

Enter new Police Chief William Bratton. Bratton was New York City's police commissioner for a couple of years under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In just over two years, Bratton's methods helped reduce the homicide rate in New York by 50 percent. Bratton will be the LAPD's fourth chief in just 10 years and obviously has his work cut out for him here. The new chief promises to turn the LAPD into an organization no longer content with just cleaning up after crime but one that works systematically to reduce it.

The most important thing Bratton brings to Los Angeles is a focus on results. Bratton's plan is simple: Measure crime, track where it occurs, examine what divisional leadership is doing to address it, measure the effect of that effort and, if those efforts are not working, demand that the division try something new.

Out on the streets, where you and I see the LAPD at work, we are going to see community policing and the ``broken windows'' approach to disorder. Bratton believes in the broken-windows theory, which suggests that when minor criminal behaviors, like graffiti and broken windows, are ignored, it signals that nobody cares about the community. And that indifference leads to more serious crimes. So, Bratton says he'll start by getting rid of graffiti.

Bratton used the same broken-window principles when he was in charge of the New York Police Department from 1994 to 1996. During that time the NYPD cracked down on nuisance crimes like public urination, and as a result, the number of major crimes fell, the murder rate was cut in half and serious felonies fell by more than a third.

Community policing is not new to Los Angeles, but it has always been a side show, with little emphasis and no leadership behind it. The overwhelming majority of LAPD officers on duty at any given time are in their cars, responding to a never-ending stream of calls. Community policing shifts the emphasis to putting officers on regular beats and requires more interaction with residents. The end result is that police officers have more of a chance to identify and stop crimes before they happen.

Secession supporters wanted more representation in their city's government. Similarly, community policing means giving neighborhoods more say in determining their police priorities. Community policing guarantees that issues of public disorder and petty crimes will move near the top of the agenda because people instinctively focus on what is visible and what they experience. When police no longer allow vandalism, graffiti and other minor crimes, the culture that allows petty criminals to progress to more serious crimes is eliminated and people feel safer in their neighborhoods.

Inside the station houses and LAPD headquarters downtown, Bratton's most visible new tool will be Compstat, a system for measuring crime, where and when it occurs, and how it changes over time. Bratton will be able to see what is happening in each captain's area, demand to know what he or she is doing to attack crime, and see if his captains are being effective. That puts a lot of pressure on results in reducing crime, something new for LAPD.

All of this will cost money. Putting in the Compstat system will be reasonable - federal grants are available to cover much of the costs. The real cost, though, is personnel, which already accounts for 96 percent of LAPD's $928 million budget.

There's no question that in order to fully implement his plans, Bratton will need more officers - a lot more officers. As the department shifts officers to community policing, the 911 and nonemergency calls that come in still have to be answered. Los Angeles has a minuscule number of police officers in comparison to many other major cities because the city has starved the police budget for years, instead investing in expanding social programs - and the unpopular, unproductive LAPD was in no position to raise a fuss about it.

The NYPD has nearly 40,000 officers. The LAPD has around 9,000. Bratton's not likely to see a large increase in manpower in the beginning. Barring a tax increase, cuts will have to be made in other city programs to pay for more officers, and the City Council is likely to resist. Bratton does have plans to seek funding from local businesses and federal grants, as he did in New York. But that will only be a kick-start. The best way to show the need for more officers will be early success with the officers he already has. If Bratton produces immediate results, as expected, it will become much easier to demonstrate the benefits that additional officers would bring to the city.

But will the investment be worth it? Yes, it will. Bratton's approach may cost more, but it is also more cost-effective. Los Angeles already gets a smaller rate of crime reduction for the resources it puts into policing than do other large cities, so we have nowhere to go but up. And most citizens will support funding a more effective Police Department that is producing tangible results in their neighborhoods.

Cities that have implemented these reforms and followed through on them with tough leadership have seen crime rates fall the fastest. In California, a study released a few months ago by the California Institute for County Government found that focusing law enforcement and prosecution on petty crimes drove down rates of serious crimes.

Sure, there is plenty of criticism of the kind of changes Bratton brings. The most serious concern is that focusing on disorder turns cops into tyrants who get carried away and abuse the rights of citizens. Oh, but wait, that's what people think we've already got with the LAPD. In reality, the problem is not most cops, it's the few bad eggs that act with impunity because LAPD leadership couldn't or wouldn't do anything about them. That will change. Bratton's system and Compstat tracks citizen complaints so that they are managed for results along with crime. In New York, Bratton's reforms saw citizen complaints against police officers spike at first, but then they rapidly fell to new lows.

Less crime and fewer complaints against police officers - wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air for Los Angeles?

CAPTION(S):

photo, drawing

Photo:

(color) LAPD Chief William Bratton takes a first-hand look at Hollywood.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Drawing:

no caption (LAPD Chief William Bratton, Los Angeles)

Jorge Irribarren/Staff Artist