In researching our book on Chicago government, we were impressed by the professional manner in which the Los Angeles Police Commission (LAPC) took the LAPD from among the worst departments in the country to among the best — satisfying the department’s own federal consent decree and reducing the city’s homicide rate dramatically — in a span of 20 years.
How did the LAPC do this? Most importantly, its governance structure set it up for success.
Los Angeles has a five-member, unpaid police commission that oversees a paid executive director. Reporting to this commission is the police chief, the executive director, and the police inspector general. This staff not only listens to the community, but then works quietly and constructively with the department to make sure it is well-managed. Training for officers is up to date and is taken seriously. There are enough well-trained supervisors. Every incident of the use of lethal force, whether someone is killed or not, is investigated on the spot by members of the district attorney’s office and the inspector general’s office. The mayor and city council look in periodically, especially around the time each year when the city’s budget is being negotiated, but otherwise they leave the staff to focus on continual improvement.
Chicago could have adopted a similar system, embracing the quiet professionalism that has taken Los Angeles so far in such a relatively short period of time. Instead, Lightfoot got behind an untested, unwieldy new political structure. There’s no better illustration of the root of the city’s murder crisis than that. And until the city’s mayor, council, and reform advocates abandon their commitment to political policing and start providing the leadership their constituents have a right to expect, the crisis will continue.
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