As he left a meeting with some of the New York Police Department’s most fervent critics, William Bratton used a term that he says will define his strategy as commissioner: “collaborative policing,” reports the Wall Street Journal. In 2012, he co-wrote a book called “Collaborate or Perish!” detailing how organizations from pharmaceutical companies to police departments have benefited from working together. Bratton used “collaborate” often in other recent public appearances: at the news conference when Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio appointed him commissioner on Dec. 5, and at a Harlem ceremony remembering Nelson Mandela hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
The Dec. 12 meeting organized by de Blasio’s transition team brought together Bratton and leaders of religious and community groups who have said their relationship with the NYPD has been strained due to stop and frisk and the surveillance of mosques. Bratton described “collaborative policing” as a tactic where the police department brokers a personal relationship with religious, cultural and neighborhood organizations—along with individual residents—to prevent crime. He said the NYPD will ramp up victim services and become more involved with young people at risk of turning to crime. These are efforts, he said, that have been neglected by a “city that has been so focused on crime reduction and terrorism prevention.” Bratton plans to target quality-of-life issues that have immediate, everyday effects on residents, such as aggressive subway panhandling and reducing the number of pedestrians killed by motorists.