Talk:William J. Bratton

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Contents

[edit] Appointment as Commissioner of NYPD

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).

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).

[edit] Some Bratton Predecessors and Successors

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

[edit] Massive Cleanup needed

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)

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)

[edit] Bratton cited in The Tipping Point

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)

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

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)