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I
live in Albany, New York, something of a hotbed of
Irish-American culture and the place where the first
man sworn in as a member of the Garda Siochana in
1922 lies buried. It is also the place where, in December
1986, I met the man who then-Governor Mario M. Cuomo
had just nominated as top man for our respected New
York State Police -- Tom Constantine. You have heard
of him, no doubt. I took a liking to the man on the
spot and have followed his subsequent career since
as an admirer, critic and even, some would say, symbiote.
You
see, during the years in which he was imprinting his
distinctive stamp on the NYSP and later the Drug Enforcement
Administration, I was quietly working with various
members of the New York State Legislature in an effort
to turm policing in our state -- an enterprise that
employs some 70,000 police officers and 500 state,
county and municipal police agencies -- into something
more nearly approaching the community oriented and
problem solving service that is at the heart of the
Patten Commission's vision for the Police Service
of Northern Ireland. I did this through nearly a decade
of individual campaigns for legislation nudging police
training and community programs toward initiatives
targeting crime involving juveniles and the elderly,
fostering interagency cooperation. promoting crime
prevention and victim advocacy and by creating a number
of public relations assets that collectively give
police agencies the wherewithal to project an updated
and positive image.
To
say the least, Mr. Constantine, although he has been
an unfailingly great inspiration, has never been my
close collaborator in this enterprise and probably
hasn't the slightest inkling of what it is all about.
In fact, I've been told by one individual who has
known both of us for a long time that because I have
popped up on every stage upon which he has been called
to perform, I scare him. If that is the case, I exult
in the achievement because Mr. Constantine scares
everybody else (whether he knows it or not) and I
would like, in the complete reverse of the subject
of a famous Norman Rockwell painting depicting a state
trooper and a small boy who had been running away
from home, to take him by the hand and lead him home
to something that was best articulated by the first
leader of the New York State Police. Col. George Fletcher
Chandler issued his first directive in 1917 instructing
the new-fledged troopers that the last thing they
would ever want to be was the person a parent would
point out to an unruly child with the threat: "If
you don't behave, I'll have this man take you away."
I'm
dropping you this line as the first Chief Constable
to be chosen under the scheme created under the Patten
program and Police (NI) Act takes office. Mr. Orde
and the Policing Board that selected him stand at
a moment as historic for the PSNI as that at which
Col. Chandler stood in 1917. I'd like, in particular,
to take the opportunity this occasion presents to
fine tune Commissioner Constantine's evolving role
-- central to which is the authority conferred by
the amendments to the Police Act to recommend legislation
to Parliament relating the more perfect implementation
of Patten.
And
so, I’d like to congratulate the people of Northern
Ireland on your good fortune in finding an individual
of the caliber of your new Chief Constable Mr. Hugh
Orde to assume the duties of the most challenging
police command in the world. Many who have great faith
in and high hopes for the promise of professional
policing in bringing the blessings of civic peace
and democratic government to divided communities are
watching the Patten process unfold in Northern Ireland
closely. I join with all of them in wishing that process
and the man who now has “operational responsibility”
(to employ the Patten Commission’s term) for
achieving it every success.
As
Chief Constable Orde assumes command and articulates
his fundamental priorities for the Police Service
of Northern Ireland, we do well to reflect that this
great experiment has as its hoped-for product a police
service that will be “a collective community
responsibility; a partnership for community safety”
the building and maintaining of which must be “the
core function of police service, not the work of a
specialised command or a separate cadre of police
officers.” It has, in the words of the Patten
Commission, “implications for the structure of
the police, which should become more decentralised;
for the management style, which should become more
open and delegated; and for the manner of policing
down to the beat level, which should become orientated
towards active problem solving and crime prevention,
rather than more traditional, reactive enforcement.”
That
being said, from the first time I read the Patten
Commission recommendations just after the appointment
of Mr. Constantine as Oversight Commissioner, I have
been chuckling over the extraordinary incongruity
of asking him to certify, if not preach, that which
he has never yet practiced. Both as Superintendent
of the New York State Police and Administrator of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, he tolerated
no decentralized structure, open or delegated management
style or pro-active problem solving or crime prevention.
Quite the contrary. As I have told the members of
the Policing Board, he imposed a highly centralized,
rigorously paramilitary management structure that
was ultimately limited to getting results -- granted
and indisputably, some quite impressive -- but not
solutions. I have never known him to be even dimly
aware of anything beyond his operational responsibility.
Well, I have long had great faith in and high expectations
for Commissioner Constantine. He himself has told
me more than once that a prime tenet of his life and
career has been self improvement. But he is definitely
a work in progress and to achieve the greatness of
which he is capable, he must go further and heed the
advice of the ancient philosopher : “First, you
must change your life.”
Referring
back to the Patten Commission recommendations, let
us be reminded that in broad terms, it envisioned
a police service that was guided on a day to day basis
by a command staff exercising that operational responsibility.
That was to operate within a framework of goals and
objectives covering a three to five year period prescribed
by the Policing Board. Both of these were to proceed
within the larger framework of policies ultimately
to be set over a longer time-line by the devolved
Executive. This talk, however, is all of administrative
and budgetary matters, bureaucratic goals and timetables,
hiring quotas, new training curriculum, tweaking of
implementing legislation and such. Where is the love?
Nowhere do I see the matrimonial event necessary to
infuse the new police service with true passion for
the community -- and vice versa. Mere operational
responsibility implies perfunctory performance by
the bridegroom. A program of goals and objectives
might turn out to be nothing more than three to five
years of “Not tonight, Honey, I have a headache.”
And longer term policies might leave the bride sharing
the plight of Penelope -- husband absent and fighting
off unwelcome suitors by day whilst unraveling a shroud
night after frustrated night for the next twenty years.
Of
all the new or newly constituted players in your policing
reform process, only Oversight Commissioner Constantine
has the potential to play a truly unique and unprecedented
role in this unfolding drama. He is the deus ex machina,
so to speak, a potential Prometheus asked now to descend
from Olympian heights -- heights he attained legitimately,
step by step over a distinguished career of forty
years. If he found up there (as he did not along the
way) and is now inclined to bestow upon us the divine
gifts of the light and fire of community oriented
and problem solving policing, they’re his to
give. So, shall we drop a broad hint through the vehicle
of the bridal registry (with, perhaps, your journal
serving as that theatrical prop) that this is the
only gift that will do? Please do. I find the role
he is currently playing unsatisfactory in the extreme.
You might as well hire a firm of accountants -- perhaps
Scrooge & Cratchit -- to do the books and issue
the dry and colorless reports he has produced thus
far.
Chief
Constable Orde made explicit in his initial public
statements that he is ready to tackle the problems
at hand -- the manpower and experience defecits --
especially amongst detectives-- slumping morale, continuing
public disorder, metastasizing organized crime, increases
in drugs trafficking and street crime and always the
looming threat of renewed paramilitary violence. With
his extraordinary resume of achievement, he will doubtless
acquit himself splendidly. But someone has to project
a well-defined and suitably high profile for the community
and problem solving policing that is the ultimate
goal of the Patten process -- a result that would
have positive repercussions throughout the civilized
world.
I
hope that it will not be imposing too greatly upon
the people of Northern Ireland to ask that you send
Commissioner Constantine back to me one of these days
in the baptismal robes of a new convert to community
oriented and problem solving policing. In law enforcement,
such an occurrence would rank in historical importance
right up there with the conversion of the Fourth Century
Roman emperor known to history as Constantine the
Great to Christianity. Should such a miracle come
to pass, I shall personally see that you get full
credit for it.
Terry
O'Neill was Special Assistant to Mr. John Poklemba,
former NY Governor Mario Cuomo's cabinet-level advisor
on criminal justice matters at the same time that
Oversight Commissioner Tom Constantine was head of
the NY State Police. He has particular expertise in
matters relating to the legislative process and police
administration and training. The New York Times has
designated him "a former top criminal justice
advisor to Governor Mario M. Cuomo."
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