Big changes at BPD

Published Jan 30 2007, 06:56 PM by David S. Bernstein

Commissioner Ed Davis announced a bevy of major organizational changes today, an overview of which you can read on the BPD's blog. Many of the changes are good ones in my opinion. Davis is implementing a form of COMPSTAT, the geographically-based review-and-response system that New York City used in its legendary crime turnaround in the mid-'90s, and many other cities have since copied. District detectives will be centralized, both physically and administratively, which I think has been long overdue. At the same time, in a major slap at Superintendent Paul Joyce, his precious Youth Violence Strike Force is being moved from his Investigative Services to Superintendent Dunford's Field Services, where it rightly belongs. (As is the police school unit.) I also love the creation of a Bureau of Professional Standards and Development, which should finally get the department to think of training as a vital, ongoing part of an officer's career.

There's much more to the proposals, and I'm waiting to see what big personel decisions Davis has coming. But this looks like a very good direction to me at first blush.