GIULIANI COP SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK

WHEN AMADOU DIALLO died, so did quality-of-life policing.

My older brother and father served with the New York Police Department for
more than 25 years, and I retired from the department as a deputy inspector.
None of us would have fired at Diallo. During our years on the force, cops
were trained to believe that we were part of the neighborhood we patrolled,
not an armed group determined to impose our sense of "order." The four white
police officers who fired 41 shots at the unarmed African immigrant are not
murderers. They, like the defenseless man they killed in his own hallway,
are victims of an errant style of policing promulgated by Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani and the two police commissioners he appointed, William Bratton and
Howard Safir.

The four policemen indicted on murder charges, and their fellow officers,
have been conditioned to believe that quality-of-life policing - cracking
down on minor violations by aggressively confronting people walking the
streets of New York - is the way to reduce crime. In the context of this
approach, everyone is suspect. And therefore, like Diallo, everyone is
potentially an enemy of cops.

I attended a conference hosted by the NYPD two years ago in which the
department boasted that many petty arrests enabled officers to take into
custody suspects who turned out to be wanted for murder and other serious
crimes. It is wholly implausible that such serendipity occurs with any
frequency. Not surprisingly, my request for details on these cases was
denied.

As it happens, some time later, the NYPD released a prisoner booked for a
minor crime who was wanted for a murder.

A department spokesperson explained that the mistake had occurred because
fingerprint technology was not yet in place.

A major argument the department used to support zero-tolerance arrests
turned out to be false. But far more worrisome is that a zero-tolerance
philosophy reinforces a growing view among police officers that the public
is teeming with predatory criminals, and that petty arrests constitute
effective crime control.

The NYPD also clings to the notion that computerized crime analysis alone
enables the department to hold commanders accountable. Those who bring about
more arrests and lower crime rates are presented with rewards and
commendation.

The resulting pressure on commanders to deliver on expectations flows down
to street cops.

Until now, increased complaints about the way people are treated by
cops-under pressure to arrest-seem to have been regarded as the price of
quality-of-life policing. The mayor even referred to those arrested for
civil disobedience following the Diallo shooting as "silly" and as players
in a publicity stunt.

City Hall also suggested that criticism and protests over the shooting would
lead to increased crime.

The NYPD is trying to "export" this aggressive policing model to the rest of
the country. But what mayor would want to be in Giuliani's position now? New
York has been the site of a string of police scandals: A cop in the Bronx
choked a teenager to death after his football bounced off a police car; a
Haitian immigrant was tortured in a police station with a toilet plunger,
and an off-duty cop shot a squeegee person to death.

Such incidents make it unlikely that other cities will follow New York's
lead.

Like communism, quality-of-life policing may sound good but in practice
leads some cops to a police-state mentality.

Nor is it clear that cracking down on minor offenses is responsible for
lower crime in the Big Apple. Crime has decreased in other cities practicing
far different policing, such as community partnership models. Crime also
decreased in Los Angeles following the police beating of Rodney King when
the LAPD cops did little except respond to calls.

Such factors as a booming economy, plentiful jobs and the decline of the
crack cocaine trade have lowered crime regardless of what local police were
doing.

Giuliani's new willingness to meet with minority leaders, the NYPD's
integration of street-crime units and the requirement that these officers be
in uniform are positive steps. But police atrocities will persist in New
York unless the mayor and police department recognize that they can succeed
only with the consent and cooperation of the people they serve.

After all, citizens are the ones who report crime to the police, give
evidence, provide testimony, and sit on juries. Those who hate and fear the
police will not provide such essential help in reducing crime.

Joseph D. McNamara, former police chief of Kansas City, MO, and San Jose, CA
is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.