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Ramona Ripston
Executive director, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
William J. Bratton has a mixed record on civil liberties. He has worked to reform a department that still has not won broad support in the city's African American and immigrant communities. Yet he defended the officers who shot Devin Brown, an unarmed 13-year-old, and a federal judge recently found that his police illegally searched people on skid row. Last week, LAPD officers bullied marchers and the media in an ugly show of force in MacArthur Park.
Changing the culture of the Police Department is difficult. Bratton has worked to repair the damage caused by the Rampart scandal, and he supports real civilian oversight. He has changed procedures on how officers pursue suspects and led the charge for flashlights that cannot be used as weapons. On balance, he is leading the LAPD in the direction of needed reform.
**
Joe Domanick
Senior fellow in criminal justice,
USC Annenberg Institute for Justice
and Journalism
Bratton should be rehired but not with open arms and a blank check. Few question his crime-fighting abilities — crime in L.A. is down. But last week's disgraceful performance by LAPD officers in MacArthur Park — responding to thrown bottles, cops indiscriminately used clubs and foam bullets to clear an area occupied by peaceful demonstrators and reporters — points to where Bratton's attention needs to be focused: on a culture that's still producing officers and sergeants too eager to use excessive force.
The Police Commission should make it clear to Bratton, through policy directives and benchmarks tied to his evaluations, that a significant reduction in his officers' use of excessive force is going to count as much as crime reduction in his second term. He also must do a better job of focusing on long-term crime prevention, given the abysmal rate of recidivism in Los Angeles, with thousands of young Angelenos annually joining their fathers and older brothers in our jails and prisons.
**
Heather MacDonald
Fellow, Manhattan Institute, and the author of "Are Cops Racist?"
The only question is whether the city will finally give Bratton enough cops to do the job. Bratton's policing revolution has shown that rigorously managed law enforcement can change behavior. He has made inroads into Southern California's seemingly implacable gang violence. With anywhere near the manpower of a New York or Chicago police force, he could drive crime down further in L.A.'s most troubled neighborhoods and set the stage for their economic revival. By doing so, he would refute the central myth of mainstream criminology: that the level of crime is determined by poverty, racism and lack of jobs. Finally, bolstered by a second term, Bratton should persuade the Justice Department to lift the unnecessary consent decree, imposed after the Rampart scandal, that diverts time and energy from the department's crime-fighting mission.
**
Carol Schatz
Ramona Ripston
Executive director, American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California
William J. Bratton has a mixed record on civil liberties. He has worked to reform a department that still has not won broad support in the city's African American and immigrant communities. Yet he defended the officers who shot Devin Brown, an unarmed 13-year-old, and a federal judge recently found that his police illegally searched people on skid row. Last week, LAPD officers bullied marchers and the media in an ugly show of force in MacArthur Park.
Changing the culture of the Police Department is difficult. Bratton has worked to repair the damage caused by the Rampart scandal, and he supports real civilian oversight. He has changed procedures on how officers pursue suspects and led the charge for flashlights that cannot be used as weapons. On balance, he is leading the LAPD in the direction of needed reform.
**
Joe Domanick
Senior fellow in criminal justice,
USC Annenberg Institute for Justice
and Journalism
Bratton should be rehired but not with open arms and a blank check. Few question his crime-fighting abilities — crime in L.A. is down. But last week's disgraceful performance by LAPD officers in MacArthur Park — responding to thrown bottles, cops indiscriminately used clubs and foam bullets to clear an area occupied by peaceful demonstrators and reporters — points to where Bratton's attention needs to be focused: on a culture that's still producing officers and sergeants too eager to use excessive force.
The Police Commission should make it clear to Bratton, through policy directives and benchmarks tied to his evaluations, that a significant reduction in his officers' use of excessive force is going to count as much as crime reduction in his second term. He also must do a better job of focusing on long-term crime prevention, given the abysmal rate of recidivism in Los Angeles, with thousands of young Angelenos annually joining their fathers and older brothers in our jails and prisons.
**
Heather MacDonald
Fellow, Manhattan Institute, and the author of "Are Cops Racist?"
The only question is whether the city will finally give Bratton enough cops to do the job. Bratton's policing revolution has shown that rigorously managed law enforcement can change behavior. He has made inroads into Southern California's seemingly implacable gang violence. With anywhere near the manpower of a New York or Chicago police force, he could drive crime down further in L.A.'s most troubled neighborhoods and set the stage for their economic revival. By doing so, he would refute the central myth of mainstream criminology: that the level of crime is determined by poverty, racism and lack of jobs. Finally, bolstered by a second term, Bratton should persuade the Justice Department to lift the unnecessary consent decree, imposed after the Rampart scandal, that diverts time and energy from the department's crime-fighting mission.
**
Carol Schatz
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