Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic

I always wonder how New York did it. The City had a reputation of the most dangerous cities in America in the 1970s and also early 1990s. Part of it was the "impact" of what Robert Moses done for the last decades: destroying neighborhoods, promoting highways and suburbanization, and locked poverty in the center city.

This book is a story of William Bratton, a police commissioner in New York City since 1994 and now retired. He was hired by Mayor Giuliani, one of the best mayor (in my opinion) New York ever had (don't count the publicity he craves, no one is perfect).

William Bratton facilitated, and lead NYPD into an effective force that dramatically reduced crime. His first case, even before he was sworn, was a fight in a mosque between the police and the muslims, a tough and sensitive case. During his time, New York had reduce the number of crime down to 43%! Here are several strategies that he changed when he was in charged of NYPD:

• Change priorities. The first priorities of NYPD was not to reduce crime, but to reduce critisism from media, community, and politician. They were more concern with what would people think than getting someone to jail (and keep them there). His new strategy was to change priorities into reducing crime, whatever it takes.
• Police officers sometimes did not feel that the department backed him up. No one holds them accountable, when they were faced into a situation that requires quick decision. When something's gone wrong, someone was shot accidentally in an arrest, for example, Bratton will back them up, in front of the media and the public.