William Bratton on “Precision Policing”
Former NYPD and LAPD commissioner William J. Bratton joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss Bratton’s 40-plus-year career in law enforcement, the lessons learned in New York and Los Angeles, and the challenges facing American police.
Bratton began his career in Boston, where he joined the police department in 1970 after serving three years in the U.S. Army’s Military Police during the Vietnam War. He was named chief of the New York City Transit Police in 1990, where he oversaw dramatic crime reductions in the subway system. In 1994, newly elected mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed Bratton commissioner of the NYPD. From 2002 to 2009, Bratton served as Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. In 2014, he was again named New York City Police Commissioner by Mayor Bill de Blasio, before stepping down in 2016.
In the Summer 2018 Issue of City Journal, Bratton and coauthor Jon Murad (a former assistant commissioner and uniformed NYPD officer) write about Bratton’s second tour as commissioner in New York and the model that they have developed—“precision policing”—that could lead to a new era of public safety and better police-community relations.
