But now that I think about it, his one-term Dem predecessor, Ed King, was a former cop, but Dukakis was both Ed King's successor, and one-term predecessor, iirc.
I'd bet the policy started in Dukakis' original first term, under the radar of Ed King.
There are many ways Dukakis could have answered the Willie Horton issue. Attempting to repaint it as an indication of Republican racisim instead of directly confronting and defusing it was probably the worst possible choice.
Passing the buck and then shutting up about it would have appeared flimsy, but the name Willie Horton would not have become a household word. Flimsy you can recover from - loudly and endlessly trumpeting your opposition's message tends to be fatal.
Wasn’t it Al Gore himself who introduced the world to Willie Horton during the Dem Primary?