This strategy can go a long way towards reducing crime

Nov 29, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I read with great interest, the letter written by Keniemo Alphonso, under the heading ‘Wilson’s Broken Window Theory can solve our crime problem,’ Kaieteur News, October 22, 2013.
The writer stated that former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani is on record stating that his administration solved and reduced crime by more than 50 percent. This is not so. Broken Window Theory was used extensively at transit to reduce crime.
Transit was not a part of the New York Police Department. At the time, it came under the command of William Bratton who had Jack Maple as Head of the Central Robbery Unit at Transit.
Leonard Levitt in his book- ‘Power and Corruption’ in the country’s greatest Police Force, the New York Police Department (NYPD) wrote it.
Bratton has a policing philosophy. His was called Broken Windows. First articulated by two academics James Wilson and Ginge Kelling, the phrase refers to a building’s broken windows, which if broken by vandals and left unrepaired, lead to more vandalism, then more serious crimes.
Translated to subway policing, this meant, conversely, that preventing the most common subway crime-fare beating-would prevent the more serious crimes-robberies. So Bratton went for the fare beaters.
This resulted in a 13 percent drop in fare beaters to a 40 percent drop on robberies. It was the first drop in subway crimes for a decade.
When Giuliani appointed William Bratton as Commander of Police, Bratton moved Jack Maple from transit, appointed him Deputy Commissioner, operations, a move described as the greatest leap in law enforcement history, Leonard Levitt posited.
Bratton lifted him from the bowels of transit police, and installed him at One Police Plaza, as Deputy Commissioner, Operations.
That innocuous-sounding titled belied Maple’s importance. It was the Jackster who would revolutionize the New York Police Department.
His creation was known as Compustat, the computer statistical analysis system, which collected statistics on crime patterns and held all commanders for crime in their precincts.
Maple had jotted down his four Compustat precept- accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment of forces, effective tactics, and relentless follow through on a napkin at Elaine’s.
Applied to New York Compustat allowed the department to become proactive in stopping crime, rather reactive to it as it had for the past twenty years.
Bratton would call Compustat the symbol of the department’s newfound accountability.
Maple insisted that every precinct keep pin maps of robberies, burglaries, shootings, narcotics and gun arrests. That way, he said commanders would properly deploy their men. Maple demanded that crime reports be given to him monthly. Then he held, twice a week, three-hour meetings with department’s top commanders. The meetings review crime stats of each precinct, the precise time of rape, robbery occur.
Each commander was forced to explain how he planned to combat them. Both the Broken Windows and the Compustat had their negative sides. They opened windows of opportunities for ranks to trample on basic human rights, and they did.
In fact, the state paid millions of dollars out in could settlements to person’s whose human rights were violated. Some of the meetings were confrontational and ended up in abuse and fights. Some commanders hide this true crime stats so as to not look bad.
Several commissioners after Bratton including Bernie Kerik, continued with compustat after the departure of Bratton, with great success.
You may recall that Kerik, before he was jailed, was contracted to both the government of Guyana at Trinidad and Tobago, to help in the fight against crime. William Bratton is now an advisor to the British Prime Minister and recently contracted by Trinidad and Tobago to fight crime using compustat.
Here in Guyana, the police are doing some amount of compustat with some success. Deputy Commander of Law Enforcement, Seelall Persaud is doing a wonderful job in analyzing the crime stats, looking at trend, patterns, series and hot spots. This is bearing some amount of fruit must be sustained.
However, the main plants of compustat- accurate and timely intelligence, rapid deployment of forces, effective tactics and relentless follow through must be intensified. It would require tremendous human and non-human resources. The Government of Guyana has been pumping huge amounts of money into the Guyana Police Force.
This must be sustained. I hope it will continue fighting crime and the fear of crime is very expensive. The resources must be readily available. The challenges faced by the Guyana Police Force are many. They defy any one-shot solution. However, Broken Windows and compustat, if effectively used, can go a long way towards reducing crime, and the fear of crime.
Best Wishes to the Guyana Police Force.

Clinton Conway,
Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police

 

 

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