Thursday, 4:30 PM
New police commissioner makes shifts
By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff
New Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis announced several internal changes to the department today, including plans to require gang unit officers to sometimes patrol in uniform, to put drug detectives in every district, and to begin using a computer system to better track crime trends.
Compstat, currently used in New York and Los Angeles, relies on computers to map crimes. At weekly meetings, commanders must answer for crime patterns in the areas they oversee. Superintendent Robert Dunford, who heads the patrol force, has been using a similar system to hold district captains accountable, but now the strategy will be implemented across the department.
Davis also said he believes the gang unit and the school police should be considered patrol officers, who will now be under the command of the Bureau of Field Services, which includes all patrol officers. The commissioner said he will centralize detectives so that they will now be under one central command supervised by Superintendent Paul Joyce, who is in charge of investigative services. In a message posted on the department's website, Davis said that move is intended to "coordinate a unified investigative response."
Davis has also decided to decentralize the drug unit so every district will now have drug detectives. That move reverses a decision made by his predecessor, Kathleen M. O'Toole, to strip some police districts of drug detectives.
The plan also calls for the merging of the department's training and development arm with its internal investigations branch. "A review of citizen complaints against officers indicated that many of the issues identified could be mitigated with training that is designed to prevent misconduct," Davis's statement says.
