William Bratton is not afraid of hard work. He does not back away
from a challenge; rather, he embraces it. Perhaps this is why he became so
successful in the field of law enforcement. Bratton, who holds a
bachelor's degree from Boston State College and is a graduate of the FBI
National Executive Institute, first became a police officer in Boston in
1970. Just ten years later he was the superintendent of police, which is
the highest sworn rank in the Boston Police Department (Dussault 1, 2).
From there he went on to manage police agencies, transportation
authorities, and the New York City Transit Police (where he cut subway
crime by nearly 50%) (Dussault 1). In 1993 he was named police
While Bratton was enjoying his much-deserved success in Boston, the
New York City crime rate was suffering from the defeatist attitude that
prevailed among cops everywhere. Policemen believed they could do nothing
about crime; in their minds, crime was caused by societal factors such as
unemployment, broken families, and bad education, and how could they
possibly fix those issues' Police commanders accepted their cops' excuses
that they did not have the proper resources to fight crime, and as a
result, crime rates rose (PoliceTalk.com 1). However, when Rudolph
Giuliani became mayor of New York City, he did not want to hear any
excuses, and he wanted to make good on his promise to lower the crime rate.
Giuliani knew how successful Bratton had been as head of the New York City
Transit Police as well as in other areas, so he appointed Bratton as police
When Bratton was sworn in, he made New York City a promise: "The NYPD
would fight crime in every boroughâ€"and win. Crime would go down by 10
percent the first year and by another 15 percent the next" (Tapellini 1).
Many people thought Bratton was a fool to make such a bold promise; they
were wrong. From 1994 t...