Zero-tolerance guru visits capital

The New York police chief who cleaned up one of the world's most crime-ridden cities is coming to London next week to lecture every chief constable on "zero tolerance" tactics.

Bill Bratton, who cut crime by 36 per cent in New York in the mid-1990s, is being flown in by Home Secretary David Blunkett, who hopes to inspire police chiefs to go to war on the sort of anti-social disorder which fuels fear of crime.

Mr Blunkett is bringing together the 43 chief constables of England and Wales next Tuesday and he wants them to hear first-hand how Mr Bratton's strategy of "partnership, problem solving and prevention" worked on the streets.

Although he shies away from the "zero tolerance" catchphrase appropriated by so many other frontline politicians in recent years, Mr Blunkett is embracing the theory like no previous home secretary.

"The term has been over-used, but no one has really grasped what it means in practice. We are hoping Mr Bratton will inspire them to see the benefits of frontline policing and having police out on the beat," a senior Home Office source said.

Based on the "fixing broken windows" theory of academics James Wilson and George Kelling, zero tolerance assumed that physical signs of neglect such as graffiti and smashed windows encouraged a sense of lawlessness.

Mr Bratton, who led the NYPD between 1994 and 1996, explained how his officers put the "order maintenance" theory into practice. "They would aggressively go after graffiti and littering; they would aggressively go after public drinking and all the other things that generated fear.

"While the police are enforcing these laws, the rest of city government would be involved in remedying and removing the visible signs. If graffiti was put up on a wall, it would be taken off very quickly. By implementing this partnership to address the signs of crime as well as the crime itself, we began to reduce the fear.

"We have seen time and time again that when those 38,000 cops interrupt somebody drinking on the street, or a gang of kids drinking on a corner, pat them down, and find a gun or a knife, they have prevented what would have happened two or three hours later when someone who was drunk pulled out the gun or knife."

Privately, Mr Blunkett believes that for too many years the role of the beat bobby patrolling the streets has been seen as a second-rate job, even viewed as a punishment by some officers.

The frontline role is as critical as dealing with organised gangs at the top end of crime, he believes. But if Mr Bratton's strategy is brought to London and other major British cities, it will see the introduction of much more targeted patrols.

Instead of officers aimlessly pounding the beat, police commanders will be expected to use intelligence to identify crime hot-spots and deploy patrols in areas where they can both prevent crime and provide reassurance.

The Police Reform Bill, set to be published later this week, will pave the way for new Community Safety Officers, a new breed of civilian officers, patrolling under police command. Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens wants 700 of the auxiliaries for London.

But Mr Blunkett is also clear that the fight against disorder is not one for the police alone - he expects much greater partnership with local councils and wants residents to support the police and join talks about problems in their area. He sees the Cowley Estate in Brixton as a model - the crack cocaine trade is being driven out as dealers' haunts have been closed off, a notorious pub was shut down and flats have been made more secure.

A senior Home Office source said that Mr Bratton had brought about a "complete recalibration about how a community should think about crime".

Law enforcer who cleaned up NY