NONFICTION - April 28, 1991

BEYOND 911: A New Era for Policing by Malcolm K. Sparrow, Mark H. Moore and David M. Kennedy (Basic: $22.95; 258 pp.) . In the mid-’80s, several big-city police chiefs confronted a paradox: Their two standard measures of performance--response time and number of preventive patrols--showed dramatic improvements and yet their streets seemed more blighted than ever by drunks, prostitutes and drug dealers. After consulting with experts such as the authors (criminal justice instructors at Harvard), the chiefs discovered that the fault lay with the yardsticks themselves: Patrols did nothing to prevent crime, studies showed, while response time seldom was quick enough to nab criminals on the scene. “Beyond 911” publicizes the authors’ recommendations for a new crime-fighting priority list. In a weakness common among management experts, their list is admirably attentive to corporate concerns such as motivating officers, but ignorant of social concerns. Thus the authors are able to call Daryl Gates “the epitome of the reform police chief” and former L.A. police chief William Parker “one of the stalwarts of the California cadre of police reformers.” This of the man who referred to the people of Watts as “monkeys in a zoo”!