As the Justice Department official who was responsible for implementing the 1994 federal crime law, I had a ringside view of changes in U. S. policing in the 1990s. I came to one clear conclusion: The single-most important factor in determining whether cities made real progress in reducing violent crime was the quality of police leadership.
Three cities were the poster children for crime reduction in the ’90s. New York City went from 2,200 homicides in the early ’90s to 650 by 2000; last year, it had 433. San Diego went from almost 170 homicides to 54 by the end of decade; it had 51 last year. Boston went from 150 to 40; it had 41 last year. An independent assessment of police department effectiveness based on crime rates and other factors in recent decades put the police in those three cities at the top of the list.
Not coincidentally all three of those cities had exceptional police leaders. William Bratton in New York City brought to the job a relentless focus on reducing crime and a management structure designed to motivate and hold district commanders accountable for progress toward that objective. San Diego police Chief Jerry Sanders was called the father of community policing in America and was a pioneer in training officers on how to engage effectively with communities; he was later elected mayor of San Diego. Police Commissioner Paul Evans in Boston developed close working relationships with key institutions in neighborhoods, including churches; when he stepped down after almost a decade, the British Home Office hired him to come to England to assess and improve performance of local police forces.
Under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act’s Community Oriented Policing Services program, the Justice Department funded police departments in other cities around the country that saw substantial crime reductions. When we looked closely, we always found a strong police commissioner leading a successful effort.
For more than a decade, except for less than six months of interim leadership by Charlie Beck, Chicago has not had police superintendent of that quality. Chicago’s crime levels show the consequences. When Phil Cline stepped down as superintendent in 2007, the city had tallied fewer than 450 homicides, down from more than 900 in the early ’90s. But then progress stopped. In 2016, homicides shot back up to more than 700. If homicides continue at their current pace, Chicago will still have more than 500 in 2023 — double or more the per capita homicide rate in the successful cities.
A universal trait of the police leaders who made major progress was an intense focus on achieving community support for effective policing. Bratton often quoted the father of modern policing Robert Peel’s basic principle that the police must always have the trust and confidence of the community they serve. For Sanders and Evans, active community engagement was a central tenet of police operations.
Another trait of these strong police chiefs was that they never made excuses. They never told people in any neighborhood that their safety had to wait until economic investment changed the character of the neighborhood or until social, economic or other conditions improved. Poverty in New York City went up in the ’90s while homicides were cut by two-thirds, and in other cities, the reduction of crime extended into neighborhoods at the lowest economic levels.
A new Chicago superintendent will take over a department that is subject to a 4-year-old federal consent decree mandating reforms. Los Angeles was not a ’90s success story. Instead, the city spent the decade resisting an investigation into its Police Department that the Justice Department began under new authority granted under the 1994 crime act to seek federal court relief against a “pattern and practice” of civil rights abuse.
Finally, in 2000, L.A. entered into a consent decree much like Chicago’s. Bratton arrived as the new L.A. police commissioner in 2002, and he — and his successor Charlie Beck — demonstrated that if leaders embrace and use it, a decree of that kind can empower police leadership to make necessary reforms and restore community trust. During the Bratton-Beck years and ever since, L.A. crime has been on a downward track to the point where it is today; notably, although it has about a million more residents than Chicago, it tallies fewer than half our annual homicides.
One strength a new superintendent will find in Chicago is a network of violence intervention programs, such as READI and CRED. They are focused on enabling individuals to move out of gangs and other criminal activity and can work closely with police in the highest-crime neighborhoods. Programs of this kind were not widespread in the ’90s. Another unique potential Chicago strength is that it has now created, under the auspices of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, elected councils in every police district. If district commanders and council members do their jobs effectively, those councils can be a potent means for community engagement and confidence-building accountability.
Chicagoans inside and outside the Police Department are ready for effective police leadership. Based on what I saw in the ’90s, a strong new leader can have a real impact on reducing violent crime.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
John Schmidt was associate attorney general from 1994 to 1997 at the Justice Department, where his responsibilities included the creation and oversight of the COPS program, the Violence Against Women Program and all other aspects of implementation of the 1994 Federal Crime Act.
