Customer Reviews

Police Unbound: Corruption, Abuse, and Heroism by the Boys in Blue

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Anthony Bouza, the former Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, the former second in command of the New York Transit Police and a retired senior commander with the New York Police Department, weighs in with ascerbic comments linked with thoughtful ideas on policing, society and public administration.

The book confirms Bouza's reputation for confronting issues in a unique manner - a blend of liberal compassion and conservative pragmatism - while attempting to "tell the unvarnished truth". His opinions are certainly unique among senior police administrators, consider these excerpts:

Police Integrity:
"The mafia never enforced its code of blood-sworn omerata with the ferocity and enthusiasm the police bring to the Blue Code of Silence."

Selection Process for Police Chiefs:
"Political figures who appoint the nation's chiefs have a dismal record of selection, invariably opting for the safe, familiar and predictable choices."

On Community Policing:
"So when the Chiefs trot out their community policings, charts, graphs and other props, you'll pardon my skeptical yawn."

Chief Bouza terms his relationship with policing as a "love affair of heightening intensity". His unique personal perspective provides the reader with a richer and more complete understanding of the dynamics of modern urban municipal police administration.

I guarantee that at some point in this book he will challenge each reader's core beliefs and basic assumptions. This book is special blend of autobiography, public policy criticism and advocacy. It is worth both your time and money.

Bouza's book is an awesome *GEM*. Incredibly interesting, insightful, informative, at times irreverant, always enlightening and refreshing. Anthony V. Bouza is one of a kind--defying any ideological label, he calls it as he sees it. Most of all, he is a person of unwavering principle and integrity. Two qualities all too rare in public officials. His book is replete with examples where his devotion to "what is right" "cost him."

Part autobiography, part sociology, part managerial science, part police history, part advocacy, POLICE UNBOUND should be *required* reading for everyone involved in any aspect of law enforcement or governance. Indeed, I recommend the book to EVERYONE.

Bouza's book is eminently readable. Here's why:

**Bouza is an accomplished *wordsmith* whose love and knowledge of the English language is evident in every sentence he writes.
His vocabulary is gargantuan; have a dictionary nearby when you read his book. His syntax and style are refreshing, stunning and
compelling; the words just fly off the pages.

**The book is arranged in a highly readable fashion. Topics such as: mass demonstrations, police brutality, corruption, women cops
war on drugs, etc. are clearly marked so that you can start at virtually any page.

Bouza exibits a keen understanding of organizational bureaucracies based on both his academic training and wide-ranging experiences. Most important, he knows HOW TO MAKE BUREAUCRACIES WORK and be EFFECTIVE instruments for goal attainment.

Not afraid to rock the boat in order to get it moving on course, Bouza was the initiator of myriad police innovations which have become the norm. Among them were:

**Incorporating minorities in police forces.
**Use of name tags.
**One officer patrol cars.
**Allowing police women to wear slacks.
**Sting and decoy operations.

It is a tribute to Bouza that while ALL of these initiatives were initially strongly resisted by most cops (including his superiors), police unions, politicians and others, he staked his reputation on them and did not retreat from his conviction regarding their benefits and justice.

Bouza loves cops and police work but doesn't love some aspects of police culture such as the "blue wall of silence", cops being enforcers of *punishment* and "convenience lying." He has made his views on such crystal clear to the rank and file when he was in command. Most crucial, he knew how to oppose them *effectively* while still retaining the respect of the cops he commanded.

Bouza is a person who marches to his own drummer. One that beats to the tune of honesty, respect, the rule of law, decency and integrity.

While clearly not a person who diminishes his many and significant accomplishments, Bouza also displays a sense of modesty and commitment to public service as manifested in the last sentence of his book:

"...my humble desire is for my family, friends, colleagues and the many people I've been fortunate to encounter in my life to remember me not only as a cop but as a PUBLIC SERVANT."

Bouza's book is an awesome *GEM*. Incredibly interesting, insightful, informative, at times irreverant, always enlightening and refreshing. Anthony V. Bouza is one of a kind--defying any ideological label, he calls it as he sees it. Most of all, he is a person of unwavering principle and integrity. Two qualities all too rare in public officials. His book is replete with examples where his devotion to "what is right" "cost him."

Part autobiography, part sociology, part managerial science, part police history, part advocacy, POLICE UNBOUND should be *required* reading for everyone involved in any aspect of law enforcement or governance. Indeed, I recommend the book to EVERYONE.

Bouza's book is eminently readable. Here's why:

**Bouza is an accomplished *wordsmith* whose love and knowledge of the English language is evident in every sentence he writes.
His vocabulary is gargantuan; have a dictionary nearby when you read his book. His syntax and style are refreshing, stunning and
compelling; the words just fly off the pages.

**The book is arranged in a highly readable fashion. Topics such as: mass demonstrations, police brutality, corruption, women cops
war on drugs, etc. are clearly marked so that you can start at virtually any page.

Bouza exibits a keen understanding of organizational bureaucracies based on both his academic training and wide-ranging experiences. Most important, he knows HOW TO MAKE BUREAUCRACIES WORK and be EFFECTIVE instruments for goal attainment.

Not afraid to rock the boat in order to get it moving on course, Bouza was the initiator of myriad police innovations which have become the norm. Among them were:

**Incorporating minorities in police forces.
**Use of name tags.
**One officer patrol cars.
**Allowing police women to wear slacks.
**Sting and decoy operations.

It is a tribute to Bouza that while ALL of these initiatives were initially strongly resisted by most cops (including his superiors), police unions, politicians and others, he staked his reputation on them and did not retreat from his conviction regarding their benefits and justice.

Bouza loves cops and police work but doesn't love some aspects of police culture such as the "blue wall of silence", cops being enforcers of *punishment* and "convenience lying." He has made his views on such crystal clear to the rank and file when he was in command. Most crucial, he knew how to oppose them *effectively* while still retaining the respect of the cops he commanded.

Bouza is a person who marches to his own drummer. One that beats to the tune of honesty, respect, the rule of law, decency and integrity.

While clearly not a person who diminishes his many and significant accomplishments, Bouza also displays a sense of modesty and commitment to public service as manifested in the last sentence of his book:

"...my humble desire is for my family, friends, colleagues and the many people I've been fortunate to encounter in my life to remember me not only as a cop but as a PUBLIC SERVANT."

This very readable book is about the functions of police departments. It is also partly the autobiography of the author, who ascended through the ranks of the NY City police, and became police chief of Minneapolis. He often serves as an expert witness in suits over police actions. He tells many stories of corruption within various police departments, but rarely identifies them by name and date. He only testifies in the worst cases of injustice (p.207). He says a police chief isn't doing his job unless the police union complains (p.235), but the chief must depend on the support of the mayor and an aroused citizenry.

After a new mayor ended his job as police chief, Tony Bouza was given a job as President of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence Inc. (p.186). His comments on the 'TODAY' show (President Bush can see homeless people across the street) led to his firing the next day. But no one had complained! Could CPHV Inc. be indirectly funded by Federal subsidies? If not, who really controls it?

The author mentions the shooting (but not the attempted bombing) at Columbine high school. These tragedies have led to garrison schools, guarded by cops and security devices, leading to a climate of paranoia and public hysteria (p.243). But the reality is that schools are the safest havens, and the home the most dangerous! Most violence occurs from people we know. (The author doesn't ask if there is a hidden agenda in publicizing these rare occurrences.) Violence often results "from drugs, alcohol, disordered homes, and mental illness" he says' but he disregards the economic factors behind them. He claims (p.245) that in an unarmed society criminals lack access to firearms but can cite no examples!

On page 250 he notes the widening chasms between rich and poor, but seems to not understand the politics of this. Perhaps our "overclass" want to turn America into a banana republic where a tiny percentage live in fabulous wealth and luxury, and the many live in poverty? He talks about the "enormous building boom" in prisons in the 1990s and wonders what will happen in the future. But isn't the prison boom the obverse of the reduction in public housing and welfare? Or an example of forced relocation of the "underclass"?

Chapter 20 "Issues Across the Landscape" summarizes his viewpoints. He questions the policy of mandatory sentences for non-violent crimes, since they fill up prisons and result in the release of violent criminals. He also questions the policy of releasing the mentally ill while hoping they will take their daily medicine. He recommends combatting crime with stakeouts, decoy operations, stings, and infiltration. Aren't these labor and capital intensive operations that may not work in small towns? He says the underlaying causes of crime are poverty and racism, which remain largely untouched by the rulers of society; it will continue.

The author's early years with the "Red Squad" must have given him the connections needed for his success, but little is said about it.

This is a tremendously important book concerning the macho culture of the NYPD (and police departments in general), dealing with the multiple ways in which machismo and prejudice bolster each other. Police officers constantly find themselves in hostile and dangerous situations and it is no wonder that they deal with this by slipping into a "them vs. us" mentality. Bouza illustrates the many ways in which this attitude is counter-productive and offers constructive alternatives.

A man from a terribly poor and disadvantaged background, Mr Bouza has - admirably - gone to great lengths to educate himself. However, his determination to present himself as educated and urbane results in some of the most dense and, frankly, unreadable prose I have ever ploughed through. For example:

"Inwardly, I swelled with pride over my sesquipedalian talents, a reaction that makes me wince with embarrassment today as I contemplate how bureaucratese and dead Latinates crippled whatever talents I might have developed as a writer. If brevity was the soul of wit and simplicity and clarity its very sinew, I had furnished the very antithesis of communication in that orotund work."

Precisely.