Picking a police chief

BY TONY BOUZA

An old unforgotten friend called to ask for advice on selecting a police chief. He was briefing a newly-elected mayor.

I work as an expert. Not because I served forever in the role. I never learned anything from my few and piddling triumphs. But I took away invaluable insights from the many times I applied, made the list of finalists and was jettisoned for prettier faces: Boston; NYPD; Montgomery County, Md.; Dade County, Fla.; Seattle; New Orleans; Philadelphia come to mind.

This was a mayor’s most important decision, and, this would surprise them, the hardest.

Over the past 20 years police chiefs have been “Aw-Shucks”-ing their way through dramatically falling crime rates, and their mayors were happy to
trumpet the results. One chief wound up on the cover of Time. Curiously, though, it didn’t matter whether the chief (or mayor) was a psycho, an idiot, a wizard or the garden variety of superannuated supernumeraries abounding in the genre. Crime went down everywhere. In NYC murders declined 75 percent from the ’80s through the present. No shortage of credit-claimers or charts.

The harsh truth is that cops are irrelevant to crime rates. Yes, they have a role to play—in catching criminals, responding to 911, in traffic safety— but crime rates fall when birth rates among the underclass teenage females decline, and when abortion and welfare reform are added to the mix. Thus, I could—and did—predict a sharp decline in crime 17 years after Roe v. Wade (1973, in the main).

Unfortunately, I had to leave my post as Chief 15 years after that landmark decision. “Freakanomics” makes the case persuasively. Now I know why Napoleon answered “Lucky ones,” to the question which soldiers make the best generals.
So, how should a chief be picked? He or she needs to be a maverick, a reformer and a muckraker: hard to find among those who grew up in the ranks of the hermetically sealed Atlantis known as the Police World, and who are likely to be union members to boot. Yet outsiders never figure it out. They get urinated on, are told it’s raining and spend their lives looking at the clouds.

an adversarial relationship—yet police unions have enormous power over the managing of the agency. The chief, after all, is certain to be at least a former member. And the police union frequently exercises great influence over Civil Service and can also wield some political sway—think council members and mayors.

The issue is control. Most police departments I’ve studied in the over 80 cases in which I’ve served as an expert in trials all over the country in the last 22 years are out of control. And the issue centers on how do you control a cop’s behavior at 3 a.m. when he/she is dealing with an asshole on the street? The tons of damage suits and settlements offer stark testimony that they are not really supervised.
Personal loyalty permeates the ranks. This subverts any notion of elevating the people’s interests above your partner’s. Gatekeepers control access. There are negative sanctions available to the chief but hardly any incentives beyond medals.
The chief has three central constituencies to choose from, but he can only serve one of them—the fraternal (cops and their interests); the political (the mayor, council members, etc.); and the altruistic (“The good of the people is the chief law.” Cicero).

Most departments have bloated corps of brass that do nothing to really control brutality, racism or other abuses. Efforts at oversight are feeble, wasteful or counter-productive. Civilian Review Boards don’t work—anywhere! Judges, prosecutors and lawyers don’t see their jobs as monitoring police behavior-even when they are egregiously wrong or illegal.

The presence of blacks or women—even as chiefs—makes the agency more representative but not more just. The brotherhood is blue—not white, black or fe/male.

The unions will protect malefactors in the ranks because that’s really their principal mission. They’ve already won the wars over salaries, working conditions, the welfare of the corps and other legitimate trade union concerns. Indeed, enormous numbers of cops work 14-hour tours a week and then show up about 20 percent fewer workdays per year. Other wasteful practices abound: Overtime, sick leave abuses and legal and settlement costs are part of the problem. The union often meets demands for productivity with charges of “quotas” or the requirement for mindless action, when the intent is to attack a visible problem.
So, how can the police be controlled to produce positive outcomes?

Unfortunately, the answer is through fear: fear of a tough, determined, reform chief who doesn’t blanch at union votes of “No Confidence.” He or she must develop a completely open system that is responsible to and accessible to any complainant.

The only true reform chief I ever met—Pat Murphy—became my mentor and inspiration. He promoted me three times in a 30-month period (‘71, ‘72 and ‘73) and prodded me to apply for chief’s jobs all over bitter, but useful lessons and certainly character builders. What writer doesn’t recognize the value of rejection? In fact, one high ranking observer of the criminal justice system told me, “I always tell people Tony Bouza is the best police chief New York City never had.” An epitaph.

A second tool of control is the media, our most important institution and governmental watchdog. A third is lawsuits. They will someday capture the attention of city leaders, but probably not any time soon. And the occasional review by the FBI of cases (think Rodney King, the LAPD in 1991) that clearly demand their attention.