Case Study of Strategy: The NYPD

Assertive Policing, Plummeting Crimes: The NYPD Takes on Crime in New York City

Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor of New York, was elected in November 1993. His concern in the improvement on quality-of-life, reducing crime rates was one of the reasons he won the election.

Selecting William Bratton to lead the objective of reducing crime in New York was the perfect decision. Both, Giuliani and Bratton, had the same approach to policing – focus on assertive quality-of-life.

Bratton’s Background is very strong. He drove crime down in New York in bus and subway system, developed quality-of-life policing, assertive policing, devolved authority and a psychological touch. He had a very proud past by reorganizing the day-to-day of police department operation and in motivating people.

Bratton innovated the system of New York Police Department (NYPD). He had the spirit of a businessman, a real entrepreneur, and a leader, someone that does. He knew how to develop an efficient way of improvement in an old system police. He was the perfect CEO.

The most important steps that Bratton uses to transform the NYPD, as a manager business was to have in mind the mission, vision and goal of his plan. The vision was to provide a quality-of-life policing.  The mission was to reduce the crime in NY. And the goal was 40 percent crime reduction in three years.

One important thing to be mentioned, before describing the most important steps of strategy that Bratton did, is about his believes.  He believed that a team policeman needs to be more aggressive, younger, motivated equip, energized, quickly, smart, knowledgeable and focus on reducing crimes.

The first thing that Bratton did was to select talent to work with. He set up a transition team to evaluate the condition of the department and to develop a plan for reinvigorating the police department. They were Jake Maple, John Miler, Peter LaPort and John Linder with different skills, knowledge and competence.

After that they started the diagnostic of the department. They found out that there were no communication, a strong bureaucracy, corruption, hierarchy, and old fashion values that were not giving performance. The officers worked at bankers’ hours while criminals worked nights and weekends. The focus was in corruption instead of policing the streets. The officers did not know that the most important value would be reducing crime, disorder and fear. They thought that the activity the superiors valued more was writing summonses. They had different set of priority. Some believed that providing police service to people who requested them would be the most important action. Others

thought that gaining public confidence in police integrity was the most important. And besides, they were not efficiency in their polices.

Bratton run the police departments in various operational units, replaced four of the NYPD’s five chiefs. He selected team of superstar: John Timoney, Mike Julian, Luiz Anemone and David Scott. And he imposed that no cop without experience, 22-years-old, would deal with dangers neighborhoods problems.

Bratton policy strategy one was getting guns off the streets. All officers were encouraged to ask everyone they arrested about where guns could be acquired. “Every arrest can be an opportunity to look for more serious offenses.”

Bratton eliminated the organization layer, devolved power to the precinct commanders and working as a mini-police chief. They were encouraged to get trained, got more authority and flexibility. They had more responsibility and motivation. The intention was to provide specific guidance about what they should do and empowerment.

To improve the officer’s psychology, Bratton upgraded the handgun, changed the uniforms to one that gave more authority and was easy to clean, and improved bulletproof vests. He motivated front-line officers to reclaim the street and gave them a clear sine of trust and support by the department of mayor. An increase of officer’s morale was observed.

The other strategies developed by the police department was curbing youth violence in the schools and on the street, driving the drug dealers out off New York and breaking the cycle of domestic violence. To manage this strategy, was created the Compstat, which was a computerized comparison crime statistic.

Compstat was one of the most important actions that Bratton did. It was a measuring program. They developed a current crime statistic using a map orientation, which was improved later with the help of technology. It was a way to follow the rate of crimes and the location that it was occurring. Then with quantity information would help to make effective questions as why is this happening? What is the cause? Is there a school there? Chop shop?  This measure was a powerful instrument of controlling performance and inspiring people by challenging them to find innovative tactics to combat crime.

The police strategy #5 was reclaiming the public space of NY, which officially announced the quality-of-life campaign: new tools to combat street prostitution, drug dealers, sales of alcohol to minors, vandalism and so on.

Finally, Bratton was the person who redone the NYPD polices, with a new vision, new culture, with an expert team. He did a reengineering, and downsizing, aligned staffs to

achieve the goals, encouraged them and gave them the real respect and needs that they deserved.

Despite of the aggressive conduct on the street for stopping everyone who looks suspicious, Bratton reduced the rate of crime in 12% in one year in New York and became a famous “business” man.

In conclusion we can say that to most effectively combat violence, police departments must combine aggressive policing with deference to communities. The combination of these two things with a strongly focused strategy can make a real difference to improve the quality-of-life in big cities.



Case Study: Strategy / MBA Ohio University - Prof. Hugh D. Sherman

Assertive Policing, Plummeting Crimes - RBR