41 Quotes by William Bratton

Broken-windows enforcement is really about controlling behavior to such an extent you change it: If you deal with the little things, you can keep them from going into the big things. Zero tolerance implies zealotry. It's oppressive. And it's not achievable. You're never going to be in a position to eliminate all crime.

We all have a fundamental right to live free from fear, free from crime, and free from disorder - but while we share that right, we also share the duty to secure it.

Policing has to be done compassionately and consistently. You cannot police differently in Harlem than you're policing downtown. The same laws must apply. The same procedures must be employed. Certain areas at certain times may have more significant crime and require more police presence or more assertiveness, but it has to be balanced.

You have to bare your fangs once in a while.

Clearly, a large number of people who shouldn't have firearms actually apply through the process and obtain firearms.

I like having ambitious people around me. I could care less if they want my job.

Slavery, our country's original sin, sat on a foundation codified by laws enforced by police, by slave-catchers.

No place is unpoliceable; no crime is immune to better enforcement efforts.

It's an unfortunate fact that in the male black population, a very significant percentage of them, more so than whites or other minority candidates, because of convictions, prison records, are never going to be hired by a police department. That's a reality. That's not a byproduct of stop-and-frisk.