With us now, former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who, from what I read,

is still influential in New York City law enforcement policy as an advisor to Eric Adams.

Commissioner Bratton has a new book called The Profession, a memoir of community, race,

and the arc of policing in America.

Now, for those of you don't know some of the history, Bill Bratton was first hired

by Mayor David Dinkins to be the transit police commissioner when that was a separate force in 1990.

The reduction in crime there on his watch led Mayor Rudy Giuliani to hire him as NYPD Commissioner

in 1994 when he took office.

And Mayor Bill de Blasio brought him back again as his first police commissioner during de Blasio's first term beginning in 2014.

Not many people can say they were Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio's first choice to do anything.

And the New York Times did report the other day that Bratton is now advising Democratic nominee for Mayor Eric Adams, who was actually on the transit police back during Bratton's first stint in New York under Mayor Dinkins.

The book is both a memoir of Bratton's various stints on the job in New York and elsewhere and a discussion of the difficult criminal

justice issues facing the country today. Commissioner Bratton, thanks for coming on. Welcome

back to WNYC. It's great to be with you and your audience this morning. Thank you. Let's talk

about what has become your signature approach to policing known as the Broken Windows theory, which you write about at length

in the book, for people who have only heard the term used on the news, and maybe loosely or

inaccurately, what is Broken Windows policing according to you who implemented it?

Well, first off, Brian, it is one of the strategies that I employ.

It is not the singular strategy.

I also employ precision policing, created CompStat back in 1994.

Sir Robert Peel in 1829 articulated it best when he defined that the mission of the police

is to prevent crime and disorder. In the 70s and 80s, we focused almost entirely on just dealing with crime and not disorder.

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