Chicago Police: An Inside View – The Story of Superintendent Terry G. Hillard

Citation

Hoover, L.T. (2006), "Chicago Police: An Inside View – The Story of Superintendent Terry G. Hillard", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 568-569. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510610684764

The first sentence of the book's Introduction reads:

In macro‐style this book examines crime, criminal activity, and police response. More specifically, the book focuses on the City of Chicago, which has a long history of and association with crime.

The focus of the book is indeed upon the City of Chicago, and recently retired superintendent Terry G. Hillard, but the book is really about urban policing in America. It integrates seamlessly three stories – the biography of a superintendent who by all accounts was both effective and beloved, the Chicago PD, and police response to the changing face of crime.

American policing is more decentralized (some would say fragmented) and hence more variant in structure and style than any other national system. It is difficult to write about “policing in America” without stretching generalizations to the breaking point. Think for a moment about the diversity of image of the three largest metropolitan departments – NYPD, Chicago, and LA. Each has its heritage, traditions, styles, and images. Each has generated its own television genre. One cannot claim to understand American policing without understanding the independent character of America's dominant agencies. Chicago Police provides that insight into the Heartland's police agency of record.

Chapter 1 is a snapshot of the City of Chicago itself. One must understand the jurisdictional context to understand any police department. The city of three million is the core of a sprawling metropolitan area, ChicagoLand, which includes 8.2 million. Chicago is rich in history, culture, and folklore – from the Gold Coast to Cabrini Green. Chapter 2 captures part of that folklore, crime in Chicago from Prohibition's Al Capone to the cult gangsters of the Thirties, Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger, to the more contemporary, and more repugnant, Richard Speck and John Wayne Gacy.

Chapters 3‐5 trace the life of Terry G. Hillard, from his truly humble beginnings in South Fulton, Tennessee to Superintendent of one of the world's largest police departments. The writing style of the book is captured by the opening sentence of Chapter 3:

In his popular book Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, author Robert Fulghum postulates in a simple, straightforward manner that lessons we learn early in life need to be remembered … “Play fair”; “Hold hands and stick together”; “Clean up your own mess”; “Share everything”; …

The linkage to Everything I Needed to Know is then used to describe the influence of Hillard's childhood on his career. The biographical description thus never gets tedious. It is linked to the larger story of being a police officer in the USA – in this case, of course, a most admired police officer.

Chapters 6‐10 describe policing in Chicago today. The Chicago Police Department under current Superintendent Philip Cline continues to focus its crime reduction effort upon the infamous trio, “gangs, guns, and drugs,” the title of Chapter 7. Taken together, they represent the “new organized crime” – poignantly in Chicago, but as well in every major American city. The documentation in this section is superb. The book skillfully mixes sources as diverse as academic sociological analysis and news stories from the Chicago Tribune. Here the book transcends being either a biography or an organizational history, and offers broader insight on the issue of “the police and crime control.” The analysis is just as insightful regarding police crime control strategy as the series of books describing Compstat in New York (The Compstat Paradigm, NYPD Battles Crime, Turnaround). Chapter 8 describes the evolution and increasing sophistication of Chicago's crime reduction strategy, from the Chicago Alternative Police Strategy (CAPS) to its current Violence Initiative Strategy and Evaluation (VISE) effort. Chapter 9 makes a social statement about the tragic effect of crime in the inner city, contrasting the national media fixation upon a few “glamour” murders to the killing of innumerable forgotten victims, such as an 11 year old girl, Ryan Harris, murdered by a sexual predator in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. In Chapter 10 the challenge to a police chief created by shootings of citizens that generate hostile public reaction is chronicled in the form of the “Night from Hell” experienced by Superintendent Hillard on June 5, 1999. The focus of the book upon one night involving two police shootings provides insight into the daily challenge of police citizen confrontation.

Chapter 11 samples the occupational milieu of policing in a major city. From recruitment to the role of the union, that milieu is a critical part of law enforcement. The chapter includes a synopsis of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of officers killed in the line of duty during Hillard's tenure as Superintendent. Although the descriptions add little to the value of the book, one suspects that Hillard personally asked that the chronicle of each be included. Chapters 12 and 13 include a review of leadership characteristics exemplified by Hillard. Jurkanin makes no effort to “balance” his review of Hillard's legacy. The chapters are unabashed praise. Although one might argue that some balance be included – “there must be something negative about Hillard's tenure as superintendent” – Jurkanin makes it clear in the Preface that this is not the book's purpose. This reviewer knows Terry Hillard personally. For those of us in law enforcement who have been privileged to do so, Jurkanin's decision is understandable.

Chicago Police makes an important contribution to the literature base on American policing. It combines biography, organizational history, and analysis of police operations. The book is richly referenced, and includes a comprehensive bibliography, and author/subject index. It stands as an academic contribution as well as a story with human interest.