NYPD stand guard in Grand Central 2006

                                             Stephen Kennedy (click for his image)

Commissioner Stephen Kennedy (1907-198?) presided over the New York Police Department from 1955 to 1961. Just as Euri informs Jack, he had little tolerance for juvenile delinquency—a growing problem in the city during his tenure as commissioner--and held such sociological excuses as a rough home life in low regard. As he noted to Time magazine:

They say some young punk is 'the product of his environment.' Well, who isn't? They say 'He suffered a traumatic experience in his youth.' Well, most of us have. They say 'He's the victim of a broken home.' Well, there are lots of kids from broken homes who didn't become vengeful and take it out on someone else.

A reform-minded disciplinarian who put himself through college and law school at night, Kennedy was never very popular with his department. Despite having grown up in hardscrabble Brooklyn and worked as a longshoreman and boxer, he trained himself to speak crisp, Shakespearean English that his colleagues found pretentious. He also condemned the petty graft that previous commissioners had turned a blind eye on, in keeping with his stated philosophy (noted in his directives to the underworld security guards), “Apply the law and apply it vigorously.”

Although the tightened underworld security measures in The Twilight Prisoner take their cues from the post-September 11th, 2001 Homeland Security alerts in New York and around the country, I felt that the scrupulously law-abiding Kennedy would make for their perfect administrator.