Talk:William Bratton

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Appointment as Commissioner of NYPD[edit]

As I recall Bratton was already Commission of the New York City Police Department under Mayor David Dinkins, In fact Bratton was already a controverial figure because during the 2001 Mayorial campaign then candidate Rudy Giuliani had complained to the police department that Mayor Dinkins had violated election laws and Police Commission Bratton had basically told him and I quote "Tuff shit I am not going to do anything because your not going to be the Mayor" and as I recall after Giuliani was elected he fired Bratton and replaced him with the Commissioner of the Fire Department. So I believe this paragraph that Giuliani appointed him is incorrect and should be removed. Misterrick 07:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Well, he DID serve under Giuliani. So maybe Giuliani reappointed him after firing him? Your story has little bearing on the article's veracity, and adding it would only clutter.

You are 100% WRONG, Misterrick! Bratton did not serve as New York City Police Commissioner under Mayor David Dinkins. Bratton was appointed Police Commissioner by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 1994. Maybe you are confusing Bratton with Raymond W. Kelly, the current New York City Police Commissioner, who served in that position in the Dinkins Administration. Citizen Dick 11:24, 11 September 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Some Bratton Predecessors and Successors[edit]

I'm not going to mess with the main page but here are some of Bratton's predecessors and successors at his earlier postings.

Boston Police Department: Successor - Paul F. Evans http://www.amazon.com/Boston-Police-Department-Images-America/dp/0738513024 (not the best support for this but I remember Evans succeeding Bratton as well)

MBTA: Predecessor - Richard L. Whelan Successor - Thomas P. Maloney http://transitpolice.us/Roll_Call.htm 4.240.123.232 21:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)AFormerMassResident[reply]

Massive Cleanup needed[edit]

This article's a mess, I have no idea what is going on and there are even sentences that never end. I can work on the misspellings but someone needs to tackle the fragments of which I am unaware how they should end. Valley2city 05:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And he's chief of what? I've seen a lot of articles without reference to their contents in the summary, but few without reference to the summary's content in the article!--Reedmalloy (talk) 05:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Altegrity Ad[edit]

"For more information, please visit www.kroll.com[10] or www.altegrity.com[11]" That's a bit much, no? Not to mention that the promotional description of Altegrity takes up more space than the description of his tenure as LA police chief. AnthroMimus (talk) 04:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bratton cited in The Tipping Point[edit]

William Bratton shows up on page 143 of Malcolm Gladwell's highly acclaimed The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, published by Little, Brown and Company in 2000. That book furnishes a vivid and compelling account of what Bratton did to rid the New York subways of crime in the 90s. I also find a precursor article that Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker Magazine in 1996 at http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_06_03_a_tipping.htm that brings up Bratton's work, although I find that article lacking in what I consider to be the most salient details. For details, you've got to go to the book that came out four years later.

I will try to get back to this eventually to see if I can craft a paragraph that brings these elements into proper focus, unless someone else beats me to the punch; but either way, there are elements here that by all rights should figure into the narrative.

--C-U RPCV 06:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removed prominent reference to pro-eugenics-through-abortion study[edit]

Rewrote sentence on alternative explanation to the drop in crime in NY to remove reference to a trivial study that claims the main reason for reduced crime nationwide is legalized abortion. While one might be able to make a case that the drop in teenage male populations was one of many factors, this study is partisan and offensive -- note one of many quotes I could pull, "legalized abortion provides a woman the opportunity to delay childbearing if the current conditions are suboptimal. Even if lifetime fertility remains constant for all women, children are born into better environments, and future criminality is likely to be reduced." It's presentation here as the main alternative to Bratton's own book is meant to portray it as mainstream and important. There are other explanations for the drop in teenage male population besides legalized abortion. And many other factors for the crime drop besides this and the changes in police practices have been proposed, such as an improving economy, and the change in availability of cheap crack cocaine. While there might be some slight value in the removed study, its implicit support for eugenics -- through reducing the population of potential criminals by encouraging abortion among "at risk" populations -- is unsupported by sound science and morally offensive. --PFR 17:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The above is nonsense. Firstly, the debate around legalized abortion's affect on crime is not limited to one 'trivial study'. A large number of studies have been produced by well-regarded economists and sociologists at prominent universities, chief among them chaired professors at Yale and the University of Chicago, and their findings have been related to a mass audience through a very well-known book which has sold four million copies. "Sound science" doesn't have to be inoffensive. Additionally, this issue has been raised specifically with regard to Bratton, and is certainly relevant. I'd welcome anyone who wished to re-add a passage detailing this. 188.220.33.88 (talk) 23:05, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Almost pre-NYC areer timeline[edit]

What's wrong with this picture:

1970 - 1994 - Boston PD (patrolman to Executive Superintendent)
1983 - 1986 - Chief, MBTA PD
(sometime after the T) - Superintendent, MDC Police
1990 - Chief, NYC Transit Authority PD
1991 - 1993 - Superintendent in Chief, Boston PD
1993 - Boston Police Commissioner

Then the Infobox doesn't even mention half of that ...

Please fix. --plaws (talk) 19:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Poor wording[edit]

FTA: "In New York, Bratton adopted a zero tolerance policing policy from 1990. This manner of policing has won plaudits and criticism[21], but by 2001, the zero tolerance policy had resulted in a reduction of petty crime and serious crime in New York." This states that the fall in crime was directly precipitated by the zero tolerance policy, but this is impossible to prove. Better wording would be along the lines of "... but the implementation of zero tolerance policy coincided with a reduction of petty and serious crime in New York by 2001" or something similar. Thoughts? 92.14.20.150 (talk) 14:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About "Zero Tolerance" according to Bratton himself:

"Bill Bratton: First, I would not advocate attempting zero tolerance anywhere in any city, in any country in the world. It's not achievable. Zero tolerance, which is often times attributed to me and my time in New York City, is not something we practised, engaged in, supported or endorsed, other than zero tolerance of police corruption. Zero tolerance implies that you in fact can eliminate a problem, and that's not reality. You're not going to totally eliminate crime and even social disorder. You can reduce it significantly.

So I would stay away from use of the term. It sounds great. Politically it's a great catchphrase. The term originated here in England when Jack Straw, as Shadow Home Secretary, visited me in New York in 1995, and by that time the impressive change in New York City had begun to occur. He heard the term "zero tolerance" when we were speaking about police corruption but then applied it across the eight strategies that we were engaging in in New York, including "broken windows", drugs, gangs, crime, stolen cars and police corruption. So it was a term misappropriated and misapplied. You seem to love it over here, because I have the hardest time convincing you to stay away from it. "

'http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmhaf/645/10113002.htm ( Bill Bratton giving witness before the (UK)Home Affairs Committee 30 November 2010 )212.85.89.247 (talk) 10:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

time to update the infobox?[edit]

While the article itself has Mr. Bratton's correct current employment and residence, the infobox stil has him over in LA.

I've held off on making the changes just in case there was some reason for leaving it as is.

thanks

wiki-ny-2007 (talk) 02:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Out of place?[edit]

This sentence in "Los Angeles" probably belongs in New York....

In Chapter 8 of Punishing the Poor (published by Duke University Press) sociologist Loic Wacquant summarizes the evidence that Bratton's strategies did not lead to a drop in crime in New York City.126.162.150.27 (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

United Kingdom[edit]

Regarding May's insistence that only a native Briton can run the Met, she is apparently changing her tune: here http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/25/bill-bratton-british-police-fewer-arrests, and here, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/30/may-proposes-fast-track-police-promotion. o0drogue0o 12:11, 27 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by O0drogue0o (talk • contribs)

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