Boston's new police commissioner speaks

Here is an edited transcript of an interview conducted by Suzanne Smalley of the Globe Staff of Edward F. Davis III, who is being sworn in today as Boston police commissioner:

On his policing philosophy
"Certainly community policing is something that I'm very dedicated to and something that I'm known for. It was the operating philosophy of the Lowell Police Department for the last 12 years and we met with some success with it. I really think it's effective and I think the community likes it and I think it works well for the city, especially in the area of economic development. So for those reasons I think it's a critically important path to take for police."

On his biggest goals
"I want to focus like a laser on violent crime, particularly shootings. My secondary goal is to look at crime across the board, particularly crimes of disorder ... and then a third goal is to do as much community outreach as possible."

On how he plans to start his job
"The policies that have been put into place recently in the Boston Police Department have been effective. So, I think that this [gang] truce process is extremely interesting and I'd like to explore continuing it, maybe expanding it. But beyond that, what I need to do is sit down with the men and women who run the Boston Police Department and have a conversation with them about what works. So, my first order of business is to distribute a survey among the police department command staff and the rank and file, as well as the civilians of the police department. And I'm going to ask them some questions. I want to know what works and what they would change tomorrow if they could....What I'm interested in looking at is not any one specific complaint, but trends across the department. I'm interested in looking at those things that a majority of people identify as really positive things about the way the Boston Police Department operates and also to try to uncover some things that maybe need to be changed that people don't like."

On the biggest department problem he faces
"One of the things that keeps popping up is really technology. The Boston Police Department, like many police departments in the country, is in the throes of either instituting new software programs or dealing with technology....The technological advances are so rapid that it's hard to keep up with them and so that has been identified roundly by people in the organization as something that needs attention and so that's a big concern....I've talked about using data to drive decision-making in the police department and that's exactly what I want to try to do here. Now, to make that possible the technology has to be available."

On changes to the command staff
"There are no specific plans to shake up the command staff. I want to sit down with everybody and talk about what works and what doesn't work....Whenever anybody comes into an organization new like I am people have concerns about what the future holds and I just want to try to allay those concerns. I intend to come in and sit down and work with people and make sure that everybody's doing what works....I've already sat down with both superintendents [Robert Dunford and Paul Joyce]. I've sat down with [Acting Police Commissioner] Al Goslin and I intend to work closely with the three of them....I'm lucky that he's not leaving until April. It's not a situation where I'm coming in and he's walking out the door. I have several months to get to work closely with him and I really am looking forward to that."

On how to improve community policing without many more officers
"There is down time. There is the ability to focus activities on something other than calls for service.... So many times, and I hope you quote me on this, so many times this philosophy gets boiled down to a few simple words like walking beats. It's not that simple and a police department always has to maintain the ability to respond to 911 calls. That's a critical part of what we do. When you talk about community policing you really are talking about a philosophical change: A concentration on prevention and not prosecution. OK, so that's what it's about. And so to prevent crime you need to get out of the cruiser, you need to talk to people who haven't necessarily called you and find out what's happening in their neighborhood and then do what makes sense to prevent crime. So it's not just about walking routes, sometimes it gets boiled down to the simplest possible form. It's more complex than that....Walking beats are a tactic; community policing is a philosophy. It's just a different way of thinking about what they're doing."

On running a large department
"When you run an organization this size you can only supervise five or ten people and so your direct reports represent large segments of the police department. I make sure that those five to ten people are doing what I expect them to do and it's happening down through the ranks. So you have to delegate the responsibility to make that happen. I can't go out into a cruiser anymore as much as I'd like to and do direct supervision of patrol officers. That's a sergeant's job."

On the police unions
"Labor unions in Massachusetts are powerful, and that's no secret in the world of police administration. You characterized my dealing with them in the past as aggressive. I think I've been fair and open with them and that's what I intend to do here....I'm no shrinking violet, but I tend to be completely honest and open and fair with unions. The issue on the no-confidence vote [by the unions against him], you have to put that in the context of when it happened. It happened when the union heads were disciplined and it was a very tumultuous time for police union-administration relations back then....I don't think that fairly characterizes my whole relationship with the union over the years....I've had very good indications that the union is open to working with me and I'm certainly open to working with them and so, no, I don't anticipate that that would be a problem."

On last week's killing of a former gang leader, who was helping keep the peace:
"I'm certainly concerned, and I've been watching very closely as Mayor Menino and Reverend [Jeffrey] Brown and the other ministers have beenworking closely with the community. At the same time, the police have been working very closely with the community and I think that people are satisfied that we're doing all we can to prevent any further violence and that we're going to continue to do that. I still haven't technically taken over the police department yet so I've had the ability to watch and I've been very impressed with the response that the police department has mounted to respond to this challenge."

On neighborhood police stations
"I can't say that that would work here because this city is a very different city from Lowell. It's a storefront, 1,500 square feet, a little place where you can walk in and there's a couple or three officers in there assigned there at any one time. They're not places where officers stay all the time. They're a base of operations where they can do their reports, where they can bring people from the community in. The way we planned them in Lowell was that there was a community space in each one of them so that the meetings that were critical to the relationship between the police and the community actually occurred in our building and so it gave us the ability to bring in groups of 10 or 15 or 20 people to sit down and talk to the sector commander....The strategies that are employed come out of conversations with the command staff and the community."

On getting to know the rank-and-file
"I'm going to get out into the cruisers, into the districts, and go out with the special units, go out with the patrol force and talk to individual police officers about what they do and how they do it. I really thoroughly personally enjoy that component of the job. So making time to go to roll calls, to get out into the district stations is extremely important to me."

On his relationship with Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who appointed him
"I think I have an excellent relationship with the mayor right now. I think he's concerned, and appropriately so, with crime as a problem in the city.... I think he and I have a very healthy relationship and that's really all I can report on because that's been my experience....I work in a system and I work for a mayor. So just like anybody else, everybody has a boss. I don't, I run the police department, but just like all the people in the police department, they have bosses, I have a boss also, and I have a very good and healthy relationship with him at this point. And I believe that's that."