Giuliani: Tackle corruption from top

Corruption is best tackled from the top, said former Mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani yesterday addressing an anti-crime seminar, “Understanding and combatting crime: A leadership perspective for difficult times,” organised by CLICO at the Hilton Trinidad. Accompanied by his former Police Commissioner for New York City (NYC), Bernard Kerik, Giuliani related how he had applied lessons learnt working in the Justice Department to help reduce crime during his tenure as Mayor. Relating how he had checked police corruption, he said this had to start at the top. “I thought there would be corruption in any large organisation and I wanted to be the one to catch it.”

Talking to reporters later, he expounded that the fight against corruption had to be directed from the top, although there could be an impetus from below which could be translated upwards. He noted: “If you don’t have that standard at the top it is very hard to bring about that change.” Although admitting Trinidad and Tobago was not identical to NYC, Giuliani said he could share certain strategies which he had used to cut crime. To bring about change, he said, you needed a “Vision” in which you all agreed on what to do next instead of merely reacting to daily occurrences; a “Process” to measure if you are achieving your vision; and “Accountability” whereby you accepted responsibility. Explaining the “Vision” of a police department should not be to increase its number of arrests but to cut crime, Giuliani then said it was one’s “civil right” to be free of crime,  quoting Martin Luther King: “The most fundamental human right is to be safe.” Asking what was the point of free speech if one had been killed or of freedom to travel if one was afraid to go outside,  Giuliani said: “Crime prevention isn’t a peripheral matter but is the single most important thing you can do for people to have a decent life.”

On “Process” he recalled that he would collect daily crime statistics for which each commander of the 77 precincts in NYC would have to account. “We reduced murder on the street between strangers by 89 percent.” He said the analysis of crime statistics, which he called his CompStat programme, had also helped unearth any police corruption as was rampant in NYC in the 1970s. He said: “If they (police) are not accomplishing their jobs, you will see that certain drug crimes or a level of vice is flourishing in their precinct because they are being paid off.” To loud applause he added, he had sent a message from the top to police officers that “If we caught you, you will be prosecuted.” Also evoking applause was his recollection that his CompStat programme had also recorded and addressed civilian complaints. In the question-and-answer session, he denied he would run for President in 2004, saying incumbent George W Bush was his good friend, a description not applauded by those present. After 2004? He replied: “2008 is so far away I can’t answer that. Only God knows.” 

Admitting it was easy to say but hard to do, Giuliani urged people not to pay off kidnappers. Noting the USA had long taken a very serious view on kidnapping, he urged non-negotiation, saying: “It does work for society. It makes kidnapping a very hard crime in which you can’t get money easily and you always get caught.” He defended himself against charges of racial profiling of crime suspects. “We didn’t have a preordained model of who to search. It comes from what people are telling us.” Noting that 25 percent of NYC’s population was black and 52 percent of searches were of blacks, he said this search-rate was not prejudicial because it was lower than the actual complaint rate against blacks, saying 65 percent of complaints identified a perpetuator who was black. “Every community I went to, white or black, told me they wanted more police officers.” Giuliani said although success rates might be small, he supported programmes seeking to rehabiltate prisoners, especially by providing them an education, plus employment and efficient monitoring of parole.

Dismissing zero tolerance to crime as unworkable as not every little crime could be tackled, he nevertheless recalled not allowing graffitti on public buses and trains because it was an advertisement for vandalism, saying its removal “promotes a sense of lawfulness.” Asked about the Jamaat al Muslimeen dubbed as terrorists, Giuliani and Kerik said: “You don’t make deals with terrorists.” Asked if a management graduate should head the Police Service, Giuliani declined to categorise appointees saying that would shut out too many people. In a media conference after his address, Giuliani saw nothing wrong with the US now requiring visa applicants to be fingerprinted. He said: “I’ve been fingerprinted many times and it’s painless, less painful than a root canal.” Saying he was a big believer in immigration and had even fought former President Clinton’s Immigration Bill, Giuliani added: “If you are having immigration, you should know who is coming into your country. That’s sensible. If you want to come into a country, you should want to be identified.”