Rebranding SAPS key to 2010 success

Lessons from the US Open

As history has shown, high levels of morale are a precondition for peak performance that is required for ensuring the safety of visitors and locals alike, especially at times of hosting a major international event.

It was at the height of New York's crime epidemic in the late 1980s when a major incident precipitated a campaign for restoring morale and instilling confidence in the local police forces.

On 2 September 1990, 22-year old Brian Watkins and his family had come to New York from Provo, Utah, to attend the US Open tennis championships. At 10.20pm on that Sunday, they were standing on the uptown platform of the D train at 53rd and 7th Street when a wolf pack of eight kids robbed them at knifepoint.

Watkins' father was slashed when they cut his back pocket to get at his wallet. His mother was punched and kicked in the face. His brother and sister-in-law were roughed up. When Watkins tried to intervene, he was stabbed in the chest with a spring-handled butterfly knife. He died that night.

This was among the worst nightmares the city and the transit police could imagine. A tourist in the subway during a high-profile event with which the mayor was closely associated (Mayor Dinkins, a tennis fan, was instrumental in keeping the US Open in New York), gets stabbed and killed by a wolf pack. The murder made international headlines.

Reversing the NY crime epidemic

In his book Turnaround: How America's Top Cop reversed the Crime Epidemic, then transit police commissioner Bill Bratton remembers: “Two days later, I got a call out of the blue from Richard Girgenti, Governor Mario Cuomo's criminal-justice coordinator. The governor understood the impact this killing could have on New York tourism and responded. ‘Can you put together a proposal as to what you would do if we were to give you forty million dollars?' Girgenti asked. ‘Believe me,' I told him. ‘I can get that together for you very quickly.'”

In addition to upgrading the police car fleet, fixing the radio system and paying out overtime due, Bratton made it his mission to restore morale in a force that “was probably the most demoralized police force in America. Their work environment was awful, their equipment was semi-functional and obsolete, their morale was miserable, and it seemed that no one but their union cared.”

Recalls Bratton: “We had already begun to redesign the transit uniforms. High-quality and well-designed uniforms contribute to a cop's self-image and personal pride and to the public's confidence in its police force. I put together a uniform committee and encouraged input from all officers. The committee looked at many options and came back with new shirts, patches, and an interesting recommendation: commando sweaters, with epaulets, very military, very smart. I approved it immediately. They gave us a very distinctive look and were also practical, much better than the coats we had worn before.”

Rebranding from the inside out

“Everything the Transit Police had done in the past had been an attempt to disguise its identity and to look more like city cops. Even our patch used to hide the word ‘transit'. We redesigned it. We designed recruiting posters: ‘Second to none. Join the Force on the Move.' Transit cops, known for generations as ‘tunnel rats', liked that. We were taking care of their interests and they responded. ‘New uniforms? New cars? New radios? Yeah, I'll shine my shoes. I'll cut my hair. I'll go to the gym.' They had regenerated their pride.”

Bratton even established a Chief's Award and personally made ceremonial presentations to deserving officers, while his chief of staff sent a picture of the ceremony to the press, at times even bringing the officer to the press room and calling up reporters to announce, “I've got Officer Smith here, the guy who saved that pregnant lady.”

Soaring public confidence

The result? Within five years, murders had dropped by 64% and total crimes had fallen by almost half. Bill Bratton turned New York into the safest large city in the United States. Gallup polls reported that public confidence in the NYPD jumped from 37% to 73%, even as internal surveys showed job satisfaction in the police department reaching an all-time high.

Not surprisingly, Bratton's popularity soared, and in 1996, he was featured on the cover of Time.

Will Commissioner Cele's rebranding strategy yield similar results in restoring morale within the SAPS and confidence externally, both from domestic and international audiences?