New Book
The epic, transformative career of Bill Bratton, legendary police commissioner and police reformer, in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. When Bill Bratton became a Boston street cop after his return from serving in Vietnam, he was dismayed by the corrupt old guard, and it is fair to say the old guard was dismayed by him, too. But his success fighting crime could not be denied. Propelled by extraordinary results, Bratton had a dazzling rise, and ultimately a dazzling career, becoming the most famous police commissioner of modern times. The Profession is the story of that career in full. The Profession is both a searching examination of the path of policing over the past fifty years, for good and also for ill, and a master class in transformative leadership. Bill Bratton was never brought into a police department to maintain the status quo; wherever he went–from Boston in the ’80s to the New York Police Department in the ’90s to Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King to New York again in the era of unchecked stop-and-frisk–root-and-branch reinvention was the order of the day and he met the challenge. There are few other positions on Earth in which life-and-death stakes combine with intense public scrutiny and turbulent political crosswinds as they do for the police chief of a major American city, even more so after counterterrorism entered the mix in the twenty-first century. Now more than ever, when the role of the police in society is under a microscope like never before, Bill Bratton’s authority on the subject of improving law enforcement is profoundly useful. A riveting combination of cop stories and community involvement, The Profession presents not only a fascinating and colorful life at the heights of law-enforcement leadership, but the vision for the future of American policing that we sorely need.
About the Authors:
Bill Bratton served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, chief of the New York City Transit Police, and commissioner of the Boston Police Department and the New York City Police Department (in both 1994 and 2014). Peter Knobler has collaborated on several bestsellers, including Sumner Redstone’s A Passion to Win and James Carville and Mary Matalin’s All’s Fair. He has written with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, New York City Mayor David Dinkins, and Governor Ann Richards, among others. Knobler is the former editor in chief of Crawdaddy, “the first magazine to take rock music seriously” (The New York Times). He lives in New York City.
After Words with Bill Bratton, “The Profession”
Former NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton discusses his leadership in law enforcement over three decades & offers his thoughts on policing in America today. He’s interviewed by Charles Ramsey, former Philadelphia police commissioner & DC Police chief.
