Avoiding the Issues

...The most prominent example of this lapse in Commisioner involves the New York Detective Bureau To foster intradepartmental accountability in the NYPD, Murphy decided to restructure the bureau, in his mind an "independent breakway entity, with its own laws, customs, and marching orders " He proceeded without consulting John Lindsay or anyone from the Mayor's office In fact, he resented the questions of mayoral assistants about what he was doing, fending them off by labeling the undertaking a mere "experiment " Finally, the Mayor himself called the Commissioner, mentioned the Detective Bureau and asked, "Why can't you tell us about these things, Commissioner9 You know, so at least we could know what to make of the heat when it comes in on us7" Murphy defended his secrecy by answering that the proposed reorganization was "a risky one," and that he acted unilaterally because he did not want the Mayor "to get burned " Lindsay partially accepted this, saying, "Okay, Commissioner, maybe you're right " What is most interesting about the exchange is that at no time does Murphy notice any parallels between his own behavior and that of Police Chief Layton Yet in this and some other sensitive cases, Murphy deliberately held back information from or acted without consulting his own superior Murphy's decidedly limited conception of accountability is symptomatic of his book's weakness He is at his best when detailing human-interest stories or explaining the immediate effect of departmental practices on the commissioner's office Police corruption lends itself to this, and the author's consequent preoccupation with it gives the impression he feels it is the most important dilemma for law enforcement today But when it comes to analyzing the political dimension, Murphy is less adept and his discussions frequently fail to recognize the long-range ramifications of Police Department actions for both law enforcement and inter-group harmony Problems like the public's geometrically escalating fear of crime, complaints of police m-sensitivity toward minority communities, and the underrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics in most metropolitan police forces are in their way at least as significant as the issue of police officers on the take, they demand greater attention than they are given here...

...Another result ot the author's approach is that he is much more at home describing a commissioner s interactions with key police commanders than with the mayor, other city officials, inleicst groups, and the patrolmen's union It one wcie to read...

...Commissioner without much prior knowledge of New York politics in the early '70s, one might think that increased recruitment of blacks and Hispanics was mostly the personal concern of Murphy and Ben Ward, the NYPD's highest-ranking black commander In actuality, it was also a top priority of Lmday, who tried to bypass the established Civil Service system and develop a special Patrol Aide exam that would be open only to members of three designated, low-income, predominantly black and Puerto Rican Model Cities neighborhoods The political clout of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association is barely mentioned either—even though the PBA was a staunch foe of Commissioner Murphy's and initiated the legal maneuvers that eventually killed the special exam proposal...

...Murphy bemoans the isolation of most local police departments, correctly pointing out that they make few attempts to compare the usefulness of different methods But he misses several good opportunities for comparison himself He explains that police work has become a very expensive city function, for example, yet makes no attempt to show how the allocation of money in the various cities where he was commissioner affected the subsequent performance of the respective departments Patrick Murphy is a conscientious and often idealistic writer on modern law enforcement He is a cop who believes that some crime will always be with us, that a resort to force is not always the best way of ending a not, that local departments must be more responsible to the communities they serve, that policemen (along with the rest of us) must obey the law He enjoys doing battle with defenders of the way things are, and he treats his audience to a hvelv account of his push tor technological and systematic change Still, he does not contront the most important policv questions facing the men in blue—questions that must be jnsucted it urban law enforcement is to icspond to the challenges now lacing it...

...Avoiding the Issues Commissioner: A View from the Top of American Law Enforcement By Patrick V Murphy and Thomas Plate Simon & Schuster 270 pp $10 95 Reviewed by Hindy Lauer Schacter Lecturer in public administration, Medgar Evers College, CUNY SINCE FEW municipal agencies are as vital, visible or expensive as the police, there would seem to be a real need for an insider's broad-based analysis of police management practices, policy development and reactions to mayoral guidance and control A study of this kind would be an invaluable aid to understanding present law enforcement problems, the obstacles hindering responsible innovation, and the prospects for eventual reform Con, nissioner might have been the book Certainly, Patrick Murphy has the requisite background As he notes, where the vast majority of police officers spend their entire career in the confines of a single force, he began as a patrolman with the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 1945 and subsequently was chief police administrator in Syracuse (1963-64), Washington, D C (1967-68), Detroit (1970), and New York (1970-73) Murphy also served with the Department of Justice and as head of the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, and is currently president of an independent research group called the Police Foundation, so he is in an excellent position to compare police policies and actions in terms of their social, political and economic impact Unfortunately, what Murphy has written is a personal reminiscence summary of a career and a fairly detailed, occasionally amusing account of some troubles encountered along the way We learn about modern law enforcement problems and the possibility of improved police service only through descriptions of the instances of corruption and inefficiency he encountered and how he handled them Commisioner devotes more space to corruption than to any other concern During his first year on the New York force, Murphy sadly discovered that law enforcement agents do not always obey the law Later, as an administrator, he had to deal with almost every conceivable type of venality, ranging from policemen who accepted free meals to the theft of over $10 million worth of heroin from the Property Clerk's Office in New York Murphy believes that effective personnel administration can diminish the incidence of corrupt behavior, indeed, he sees this as the most important component of police reform Promotion, demotion, evaluation, transfer of assignment, discipline, and dismissal, he declares, are the puppet "string by which the various joints of the huge bureaucracy [are] made to move and act One of the reasons he has become a sworn foe of civil service systems, such as New York's, is his feeling that they inhibit the commissioner's ability to discipline members of the force and keep crooked or inefficient policemen "insulated in the womb," protected from official sanctions New York's system, he says, is the commissioner's "prison keeper" and "a law unto itself " As a commissioner, Murphy was widely considered a leader and an innovator Called into each of his successive posts in order to eliminate corruption and make other changes, he predictably often met opposition from those below him who had been working in the department for many years and were perfectly satisfied with the status quo That is no doubt why he stresses intradepartmental accountability, the need of the chief administrator to control his own subordinates And this, he further notes, depends on access to information, a police commissioner cannot run the department effectively if he does not know what's going on When Murphy was Director of Public Safety in Washington, D C , he became enraged upon learning from one of Mayor Walter Washington's aides and a radio station reporter that inebriated white off-duty police officers had taken pot shots at the home of the president of Howard University He cornered Police Chief John Layton and made it quite clear that in the future the Director was to be informed immediately of all controversial or politically sensitive incidents "Chief, don't you understand," Murphy screamed "I'm your boss I'm your boss " Murphy appears to forget, however, that the police commissioner, too, has a boss to whom he is accountable—the mayor Thus, while he rightly observes that divisional loyalties must give way if reorganization is to increase efficiency, he does not seem to realize that the police department itself is just one bureau in the larger entity of municipal government, and that the mayor must be kept abreast of each departmental commander's actions if he is to properly coordinate city policy...