Shuffling the Force
The District's police chief opts for lean and mean.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

THE FORCE that D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier took over is quite different from the one her predecessor inherited. And it makes sense that she would want to put her stamp on the organization. That she is streamlining the bureaucracy to make for more agile police work is commendable, but it will take more than a new organizational chart to mount an effective police presence against crime.

In the first major overhaul of the 3,900-member department in 10 years, Chief Lanier is reducing the number of assistant chiefs and abolishing the regional operations command centers that Chief Charles H. Ramsey established. The regional centers made sense for a department beset by poorly trained officers and lax management. But the verdict of police, community members and council officials is that they have outlived their usefulness.

The chief's plan empowers local district commanders. Instead of having to contend with an extra hierarchical layer, they will be able to devise and implement crime strategies that make sense for different parts of the District. Ten of these 16 commander posts are held by African Americans -- which gives the lie to any notion that Chief Lanier, who is white, was insensitive to race when she eliminated the assistant chief positions. Instead of immediately bringing in a new team, as has been the norm for the department, she spent nine months evaluating personnel and studying options. Chief Lanier's plan centralizes direction of the city's 2,000 patrol officers under one assistant chief, which presumably will make it easier to deploy officers where and when needed. The most common complaint about police officers is that they aren't in the streets or out of their cars. Cutting out a level in the chain of command will help, but until issues like onerous requirements for officers to appear in court, outmoded technology, counterproductive work rules and lax attitudes are fixed, residents won't see dramatic change.

Ultimately Chief Lanier's strategies must produce results where it matters most -- bringing down the crime numbers. Homicides are up this year, but violent crime is down overall. Total crime numbers remain static. The chief's much-publicized summer crime initiative had mixed results. Some districts showed declines; there was progress with juveniles but overall crime was not affected; in fact, it was up from previous years. In overhauling the department that produced her, Chief Lanier is making it her own; now she needs to use it to make the streets safer.