An LAPD cop who has spent his entire 32-year career enforcing the law in South Los Angeles, has risen to the top of the heap and has set something no one has thought about — let alone, talked about — as his number one goal toward combating crime in the area.

Police Chief Charlie Beck promoted Commander Patrick M. Gannon to deputy chief on Jan. 3 and put him in command of the South Bureau — in charge of the policing of 800,000 residents within 60 square miles with 1,500 sworn officers and 250 civilian employees.

Having been in it so long, Chief Gannon knows the South Bureau like the back of his hand. He, Beck and other LAPD leaders have worked hard, in conjunction with the growing cooperative relationship with the communities, to reduce the crime rate in the South Bureau to its current seven-year low.

During 32 years handling miscreants of all ages, and his recent years fighting criminal gang activity in the South Bureau, Gannon has come to a glaring realization: The LAPD needs to do a better job of dealing with the families of children when they first come in contact with the cops.

“Our number one goal, of course, is to continue to reduce crime. That must always be our fundamental goal,” Gannon said. “But how we get there and how we do that always seems to kind of evolve and change. We will continue to, as [former Chief William] Bratton said, ‘put cops on the dots,’ but the impact of the city’s budget cuts could make meeting that goal more challenging,” Gannon said.

“But when I look ahead to what I want to accomplish, I think we need to do a better job of reaching families and their kids when they first come in contact with law enforcement. Years ago we used to have the juvenile ‘Cite Back’ program in which, for example, a youngster was picked up for vandalism, shoplifting or something minor like that and he would be brought to the station. We’d call his mom or dad and tell them to come to the station and pick him up, then issue a citation requiring the parent to return to the station with the child — usually on a Wednesday or a Thursday — and meet with an officer to discuss the child’s behavior and counsel the parent as to what could be done to improve the child’s behavior and keep him out of trouble,” Gannon explained.

Gannon said South Bureau stations had community resources at their disposal then which would assist parents in dealing with their children’s budding anti-social/criminal inclinations and with that first cop contact and parental/community intervention, the “Cite Back” program worked.

“There are a lot of parents out here who want their children to behave better and to stop doing stupid things that get them into more and more trouble, but they don’t know how to make that happen,” Gannon said. “I think as a police department we have to do a much better job of providing opportunities — not necessarily through our program — but through community programs that provide services to families.

“And in many cases, the problem is not just with the little guy,” Gannon said. “Often the child is responding to his parent’s drug or alcohol use, mental health problems or misguided parenting practices and we need to sit down and talk about these things and be able to refer these families to organizations that handle these issues so we can keep these children out of our squad cars, our police stations, our jails and our prisons. And right now, we’re not doing a good enough job at that.”

Gannon said the “Cite Back” program ended 10 years ago when the resources for it were shifted to other law enforcement areas, such as domestic violence. “But we need to go back to it,” he said.

Gannon said the shifting of resources also marked the diminished discretion police officers had in determining what should happen to a first-time juvenile offender.

“If a juvenile was arrested and brought to the station for the first time, I always thought that was an opportunity for us to determine whether or not that kid should have a record,” Gannon said. “Should he officially book that child, give him a number, give him a record on the very first time we’ve seen him? Or is there another way around that?

“If you look around, you’ll see that you’re almost setting the kid up for failure the minute you put him in the system,” he continued. “It’s an automatic system of paperwork that goes from the police to the district attorney to court to the probation department — all leading to the child having a record for making a stupid mistake.

“I’ve always hated that. Each child is different and police officers — the child’s first contact — should have the discretion of determining before he books him whether he’s just made a stupid mistake or is a budding sociopath in need of imprisoning.”

Chief Gannon is the third of four generations of LAPD officers. His grandfather was a cop; his father was a cop and his son, Michael, is a five-year veteran with the Wilshire Division. He has two other children: Ryan, who is an accountant, and Christina, who attends UC Berkeley. And if Chief Gannon can achieve his goal, fewer South Bureau children will end up in prison for the stupid mistakes that often mark one’s childhood and will grow up to go to college, become accountants and be cops, too.