Restoring law and order

The successful career of Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, offers inspiring lessons in countering crime and facing crisis situations during the discharge of public functions.

MORE than 20 years ago, two eminent professors in the United States George Kelling and James Q.Wilson published an essay that turned out to be a landmark study of crime and its prevention. Called the "Broken windows theory", it pleaded for greater attention even to trivial infractions of the law and signs of disorder in the community as the most effective means to nip criminal tendencies before they erupt into serious crime. According to Wilson and Kelling, if even one broken window in a locality remained unfixed for a long time, the message that went around was that no one there cared for order in the area, and hence any criminal activity could also go unnoticed. In sum, passivity to disorder was an invitation to anti-social activity.

To begin with, the essay did not immediately stir the imagination of many law-enforcement agencies. A few did try to implement the suggestion that all crime, however trivial it might appear, should produce appropriate responses from law enforcement. The impact of action by the police in one or two places in the country was, however, nominal. The real breakthrough came only when the New York Police Department (NYPD) launched what became known as "zero tolerance" of crime. The NYPD obviously derived its inspiration from Wilson and Kelling. First, it was a dynamic Police Chief who gave the impetus. Then came a Mayor, who saw in the concept a great opportunity to transform the Big Apple's sullied image of the murder capital of the country.

Employing zero-tolerance policing, Police Chief Bill Bratton and Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided the magic touch that brought crime figures dipping. For instance, the homicide figure, which touched 2,245 in 1990, dropped to 1,561 in 1994, the first year of Giuliani's reign. In his last year in office, 2001, the number of homicides came down to 642, a fall of 67 per cent over eight years. It is an entirely different story that on the way Bratton and Giuliani fell apart, and the former put in his papers in 1996 when Howard Safir succeeded him. (Readers may recall that Bratton was recently made chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and has had the mortification of seeing 16 murders there within a space of five days, just a few weeks ago!)

Browsing at a bookshop in the sleek Minneapolis airport a few weeks ago, I was instantly attracted by Leadership (Hyperion, New York), the just-released highly readable memoirs of Giuliani, which gives an absorbing account of his eventful tenure. Expectedly, the narration begins with those tortuous moments of September 11, which possibly would go down as the watershed in the history of terrorism for all times to come. Painful as it was, the event showed what mettle New Yorkers were made of, and especially its First Citizen. While crime reduction no doubt gave Giuliani the formidable reputation of a no-nonsense and tough law and order man, September 11 almost immortalised him. Celebrated by Time magazine as the Man of the Year, he gave the kind of leadership that won him the hearts of all New Yorkers, including those of the families of victims.

Giuliani gives a chilling account of how he handled the tragedy. I personally feel, every civil servant, especially senior police officers, should read him, if only to absorb the message that crises such as 9/11 are best handled by personal presence at the spot. There is no way you can monitor them over telephone, sitting comfortably at your office. This is the lesson I learnt the hard way in my callow years as an Assistant Superintendent of Police. While a majority of officers do subscribe to this even now and act accordingly, it is a sad fact that there are a few who fight shy of confronting situations themselves and leave this task to subordinate personnel, without wanting to soil their hands or risking their reputations!

Giuliani was told of the first aircraft crashing into the World Trade Centre within minutes of the happening, while he was having breakfast in a hotel with a friend. His first impulse was to rush and take charge of the situation. He did this with great aplomb, without any fuss or ostentation or any room for confusion to himself or those who rallied behind him from among his staff. Dividing his mission into three parts, viz., communicating with the public on what had occurred, preparing to receive the injured so that they could get immediate medical help, and anticipating further enemy attacks, he literally "re-established" the city government which had come to a grinding halt because of the enormity of the assault and the total breakdown of communication links. The rest of the story, carried all over the globe by satellite TV, is still very vivid in our minds.

Giuliani's "walking press conferences", amidst all his preoccupations, were unique for their brevity and clarity. What stood out was his refusal to succumb to emotions:

... in the face of this overwhelming disaster, standing amid sixteen acres of smouldering ruins, I felt a mixture of disbelief and confidence that we would soon be rescuing survivors... there was no time to spend actually experiencing an emotion. There were moments of anger, fear and sorrow, but with so much to do, it was impossible to dwell on those feelings.

Giuliani's words bring back to me sad memories of that fateful night of May 21,1991 when I stood amidst the ruins of Sriperumpudur, and when, fortunately, a sense of duty got the better of my emotions and helped me organise relief and protect the scene of that dastardly crime, which robbed us of a youthful and dynamic leader. I am citing this not out of a sense of pride but to remind my brethren in the police how necessary it is to emulate the steely resolve of Giuliani when an enormous crisis hits you hard during the discharge of public functions.

Coming back to how Giuliani countered common crime in New York, it is necessary to remember that by September 11, Giuliani had already made a mark for his forthright approach to the problem. Though magnificent with an elegant skyline and vibrant because of a burgeoning population that came from every part of the globe, the New York of the 1990s did not strike you as a friendly city. Pursuing criminal justice studies at Temple University, Philadelphia around that time, the New York crime situation did figure in conversations with my professors and class fellows. I had heard enough to frighten me. Still, lured by the fame of that great city, I picked up enough courage to go there. I remember how, after visiting friends at New York University, and passing through the fabled Washington Square Village, I could see the open, uninhibited sale of drugs. There were a number of youth idling in the adjoining park, which hardly gave the impression that they were pursuing education or any worthy employment. Again, sauntering around Time Square, I was witness to sights that convinced me that the place was seedy and dangerous. The eerie variety of characters that simply stood by and eyed whoever went past them could give one the creeps. I was determined not to get back there if I could help it. A few business visits thereafter, at frequent intervals, did not exactly endear me to that metropolis where one felt unsafe because of a galloping crime rate, so colourfully portrayed by the media, day in and day out.

BUT then things changed suddenly from about the mid-1990s. Reports of a clean up and falling crime rates started trickling in, before criminologists began to notice a distinct positive trend that re-established public faith in the law-enforcement agencies. First, Bill Bratton was hailed as the messiah responsible for the near transformation of the scene. A little later one heard the name of the determined Mayor who was behind the Police Chief, working towards making New York a crime-free city.

The city has not looked back since then, although there are sceptics who would say that the crime figures trotted out are false. I am not inclined to go with the latter because, early this year, my wife and I lived in the heart of Manhattan for nearly a fortnight and found the city even around midnight, most safe and agreeable.

How did the Big Apple win its battle against crime? Giuliani attributes this foremost to an analytical study of crime, and holding every precinct official accountable to a rise in crime in his jurisdiction. Computer-generated statistics are studied every day, and at the twice-weekly CompStat meetings held in the Police Plaza, the NYPD's headquarters, there is a peer review of the situation, and borough commanders are asked to account for even small fluctuations in crime. At these inquisitions, participants know that they cannot get away with suave but hollow explanations. There is enormous pressure to present a healthy picture of crime at this meeting through solid field achievements.

More than this, the opportunity for intelligence sharing and technique-sharing converts the meeting into a brainstorming session, followed by meaningful remedial action. Interestingly, Giuliani was present at some of the CompStat meetings, enhancing the significance of the occasion and its utility as a means to control crime. He is so exuberant over the success of this methodology that he hails it as "the crown jewel of my administration's push for accountability" and as a "true culture shock" to those who did not like accountability.

The Indian police is not all that unfamiliar with the technique employed by CompStat meetings. Frequent meetings are held by the District Superintendent of Police to review crime. But these have become a ritual to be somehow gone through for the sake of record. Seldom does one see the punch and verve associated with NYPD's CompStat meetings. A lot no doubt depends on individual leaders and their style. Also, the fire-fighting that every police supervisor has to do these days, while overseeing the maintenance of public peace, distracts him from his key responsibility of crime control. I do not know when this sorry state of affairs will end. There is need for public pressure, directly or through elected representatives, for greater police focus on crime prevention.

This brings to me a mischievous thought. How will the U.S. system of mayoral control over the police work in India? There is no legal provision for it in our country. Will it enhance the quality of policing? Or, will it only succeed in greater politicisation of our police forces? There is a case for debating this against the backdrop of complaints of declining standards of professionalism.

READING Giuliani I was impressed with the utter humanity of the man. Beginning life as a state prosecutor, after graduating from New York University's reputed law school, he was known to be ambitious, brash and egoistic. (There is speculation that he will run for the President in 2008, when, interestingly, he could be facing Hillary Clinton!) As Mayor, he was determined and decisive, and consequently ruffled many feathers. He discountenanced Bill Bratton because he thought the Police Chief was outshining him. And he did not conceal his burning desire to be always in public limelight. These minor failings which many of us undoubtedly share did not obscure his qualities as a leader of men. His heart went out to whoever suffered emotionally and physically in the discharge of his duties. "Weddings discretionary, Funerals mandatory" is a chapter that says it all. He was spontaneous in sharing the grief of people who worked for the city. This was not a public relations gimmick, but the outpouring of a heart that cared for everyone who helped him to run the mega city. This is something worthy of emulation by every one in public administration who wants to get the best out of his staff.

Right through the book, Giuliani writes with feeling, yet he hardly yields himself to the kind of sentimentality that could often blur one's vision or corrode one's ability to react to an extraordinary situation. No doubt he emerges as a personality who is full of steel he is still battling prostrate cancer, and has possibly won it but it is one that is tempered with compassion. I cannot resist ending with his final words:

Part of leadership is harnessing your passions in a way that serves your goals my father's advice: stay calm. But another part of leadership is retaining your humanity. The anger I felt, and continue to feel... is healthy. The challenge was to put it to work in ways that would make me a stronger, better leader.

I would strongly recommend Leadership to be required reading in all our civil service and police training institutions, only because there is so much to learn from Giuliani.