Daily Times

Our country is young, and our stories are not legend; we have to look towards others to find lessons for ourselves. If we consider the example of America, we will find that they tried a number of strategies in different places in the US to fight against crime. In the early 90’s, New York Mayor Giuliani and Police Chief Bratton introduced “zero-tolerance” policing by bringing strategic organisational changes. The zero-tolerance model of policing was based on the “broken window” theory of crime control, and both claim great success in lowering crime rates in New York. William Bratton’s Compstat was built around four concepts, Accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment of personnel and resources, effective tactics, and relentless follow-up and assessments. Compstat is an engine that drives “zero-tolerance” policing. Bratton presents a synopsis of the broken windows theory as follows: “Just as unrepaired broken windows can signal to people that nobody cares about building and lead to more serious vandalism; untended disorderly behaviour can also signal that nobody cares about the community and result in more serious disorder and crime.”

The target of zero-tolerance policing was to focus on the kinds of “quality of life” issues. The policing involved to eradicate petty crimes on the streets. Giuliani in his mayoral campaign promised to get rid-off beggars who stopped drivers in their cars to scrub their windshields and panhandle for cash, the petty drug dealers, the graffiti scribblers, and the prostitutes who ruled the sidewalks in certain high crime neighbourhood. In his campaign, Giuliani promised to reclaim the streets of New York for law-abiding citizens.

After assuming the duties as Police Chief of NYPD in 1994, Bratton moved vigorously to transform the police department from top to bottom and to transfuse the department with a new mindset about what the police could and should do to attack the problem of crime and reduce its impact on the residents of the city. He was of the view that serious crime problems can be crushed by mounting a large-scale attack on petty offences and disorderly behaviour through a zero-tolerance strategy.

As its keystone crime-prevention strategy, New York City has turned away from community policing and chosen instead the zero tolerance campaign that is heavily reliant on traditional methods of law enforcement to eradicate quality-of-life problems. He directly confronted the collective wisdom of many expertsand,perhaps most New Yorkers believed that the NYPD was too large, too rigid, toobureaucratic, and too parochial to be able to embrace the kinds of radical changes in policies and practices that would be required in a serious effort to winmeasurable reductions of the city’s high crime rates. And William Bratton proved that they were wrong. As chief executive officer of one of the world’s largest police agencies, he introduced new management tools, techniques, and technology at lightning speed and moved quickly to decentralise authority and to wrest decision-making power away from headquarters brass and move it out to the precinct and borough commands. He broke down a maze of bureaucratic barriers vigorously by pushing, prodding, and when necessary replacing personnel.

He was able to integrate many of the police functions previously held by specialised units so as to empower patrol officers to move directly to address drug and gun crimes in the neighbourhoods they serve. To at least some extent, rhetorical emphasis on the broken windows theory has served to obscure the remarkable record that William Bratton set in managing organisational change within the NYPD. No doubt, changes in policing models would also go a long way to help reduce the rift in police-community relations and to improve the quality of life of citizens.

While on the other hand, many other police chiefs did the opposite to bring the crime rate down. For example, San Diego did not take on a zero-tolerance model but opted for a problem-oriented community policing strategy. They were able to reduce crime by getting the community involved and striking at the roots of the problems instead of targeting citizens with minor offences. Likewise, Boston Police focused on the more serious criminals instead of the low-level offenders. Both models helped to reduce crime, but at the same time, allowed the community to feel satisfied with the police departments. These both types of policing models work not only to reduce, or even eliminate the crime but avoided the sense of unfair treatment by young men of colour comparing to zero tolerance policy in New York. Since the NYPD stop and frisks targeted mostly Latino and black communities, it is something that should be taken into consideration regarding what model of policing helps more than hurts the communities. This issue must be considered even in our own country where a particular group is targeted at checkpoints in the cities. The evidence exists to show that aggressive policing for minor offences is not necessary to reduce overall crime rates, so perhaps it is time to try something different and help bridge the gap that has continued to grow between the criminal justice system and communities. Keeping in mind to improve the quality of life of citizens may guide law enforcement agencies to form strategies most suited to their cities.

We are facing a unique problem of terrorism that is often reflected in the incidents of ransom, kidnapping and corruption. Our crime problem is not exactly similar to any of the criminal activity mentioned above. There should be a different strategy to combat this issue, but our newly elected mayors could form strategies with the help of concerned police departments by evaluating the success and vision of people who tried something different for the eradication of crime and made their cities safe and focused on the quality of living for the citizens.

It is probably fair to say that there are two different concepts about the criminality in our society. Those who hold a view of traditional or the conservative theory about the etiology of crime blame on the erosion of social values while the liberal view it because of economic inequity is the prime contributing factor in the rise in crime within the country. In fact, both have so far failed to offer any coherent, convincing explanations of recent national crime trends.

The imminent test of the newly elected Mayors is to find a solution to combat wave of terrorism. The waves are never considered to be permanent and definitely will turn away. What we have to do is to keep the damage at minimal level caused by this furious wave. Our newly elected members have to think out of the box and have to work closely with thepolice department to form strategies against crime which has taken the shape of terrorism. We have to wait and see that who is taking the role of Mayor Giuliani and who is playing as William Bratton to improve the quality of life for the people of Pakistan.

William Bratton rightly said in his farewell speech that “Policing is never done; it’s always unfinished business.”

The writer can be reached at malikmasud@hotmail.com