In Depth April 1, 2010, 5:00PM EST

Bill Bratton, Globocop

He tamed crime in New York and Los Angeles. Next stop...Kabul?

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Bratton (second from right) has relied on CompStat, which uses real-time information about crime patterns and demands more accountability from local law-enforcement officers Larry Fink

Even for a diehard optimist like Bratton, Kabul will pose daunting challenges. Adam Ferguson/VII Mentor Program

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Bloomberg News

(Corrects the name of Providence Equity Partners in the fifth graph.)

Sometime this past summer Bill Bratton realized he was getting bored. He was nearing his 62nd birthday and wondering what his next challenge might be. He'd spent most of his career in law enforcement. Was it time for another shot at the corporate world? He had been in command of the Los Angeles police force for seven years, the longest he had ever stayed anywhere. Bratton had led the department through grueling, federally mandated reforms. He had put into practice all of his ideas about policing and management and leadership, and they had worked. The crime rate had dropped by more than a third. The LAPD, long despised in minority communities, found acceptance where it had previously been feared. Morale was high. "I had done everything I wanted to do," he says.

What he chose to do next suggests that Bratton still has something to prove, because there are many easier ways to ensure a comfortable retirement. In the fall of 2009 he became chairman of Altegrity Risk International, a security consulting firm in New York. Bratton intends to bring the best of American policing to some of the most dangerous places in the world. Soon the State Dept. will open the bidding on highly lucrative contracts to help train police forces in what it calls post-conflict nations. It's work that has often defied the expertise of more established companies, other law enforcement agencies, and the U.N. It is dangerous, frustrating, politically fraught, and labor-intensive. Bratton, however, is optimistic. In fact, he sounds like a man about to embark on a long-planned vacation. "It's a great time to be doing this," he says in his office in midtown Manhattan. "Some of the fun I can have with this venture is that I still get to advocate for the American success story. And it's an opportunity to have that success validated by making money."

Bratton's philosophy of law enforcement took shape 20 years ago when, as head of New York City's transit police, he inspired and provoked a once-demoralized force to restore order underground. He and a small brain trust believed that police should consider residents their customers, criminals their competitors. They also understood that authority and accountability had to be visible at a local level. Which meant that cops in the squad house needed real-time information that they weren't getting: details about crime patterns and colleagues' responses.

In 1994, New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani appointed him police commissioner, and although friction with his boss led to Bratton's ouster after two years on the job, his impact was long lasting. During his time as head of the NYPD, serious crime dropped by 33% and the murder rate was cut in half. The Bratton approach includes a data-driven problem-solving process known as CompStat (for computer statistics) that was devised by one of his most influential deputies, the late Jack Maple. CompStat has been widely, if unevenly, embraced by forces around the country.

Today, nearly 15 years after Bratton's career as New York's chief cop ended, he still wears a large gold ring with a replica of his badge. His Altegrity office in Manhattan is full of police memorabilia: his first badge from Boston and miniatures of New York's first police helicopter and California's first black-and-white cruiser. Altegrity, a billion-dollar company owned by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, has many lines of business: It conducts employment background checks, due diligence, corporate fraud investigations, and risk analysis of all kinds. Altegrity Risk International is a new division. Overall, the company has about 2,800 investigators and its biggest client is the U.S. government. In anticipation of winning a few of the upcoming State Dept. contracts, which could be worth $30 billion overall, Bratton and his staff have been recruiting former police chiefs, cops, lawyers, and judges to handle the day-to-day work overseas.