fletcher
10-04-2007, 09:13 AM
Freakonomics (http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Revised-Expanded-Economist-Everything/dp/0061234001/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3257277-5556158?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191510004&sr=8-1) is quasi-economics book that covers many topics, but one major topic is why crime went down suddenly in the 90's. It specifically discusses NYC and why Rudy had nothing to do with the reduction in crime. Here is an excerpt from the book (found the pdf online by searching 'freakonomics pdf'):
But it wasn’t only the number of police that changed in the 1990s; consider the most
commonly cited crime-drop explanation of all: innovative policing strategies.
There was perhaps no more attractive theory than the belief that smart policing stops
crime. It offered a set of bona fide heroes rather than simply a dearth of villains. This
theory rapidly became an article of faith because it appealed to the factors that, according
to John Kenneth Galbraith, most contribute to the formation of conventional wisdom: the
ease with which an idea may be understood and the degree to which it affects our
personal well-being.
The story played out most dramatically in New York City, where newly elected mayor
Rudolph Giuliani and his handpicked police commissioner, William Bratton, vowed to
fix the city’s desperate crime situation. Bratton took a novel approach to policing. He
ushered the NYPD into what one senior police official later called “our Athenian period,”
in which new ideas were given weight over calcified practices. Instead of coddling his
precinct commanders, Bratton demanded accountability. Instead of relying solely on old-
fashioned cop know-how, he introduced technological solutions like CompStat, a
computerized method of addressing crime hot spots.
The most compelling new idea that Bratton brought to life stemmed from the broken
window theory, which was conceived by the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George
Kelling. The broken window theory argues that minor nuisances, if left unchecked, turn
into major nuisances: that is, if someone breaks a window and sees it isn’t fixed
immediately, he gets the signal that it’s all right to break the rest of the windows and
maybe set the building afire too.
So with murder raging all around, Bill Bratton’s cops began to police the sort of deeds
that used to go unpoliced: jumping a subway turnstile, panhandling too aggressively,
urinating in the streets, swabbing a filthy squeegee across a car’s windshield unless the
driver made an appropriate “donation.”
Most New Yorkers loved this crackdown on its own merit. But they particularly loved the
idea, as stoutly preached by Bratton and Giuliani, that choking off these small crimes was
like choking off the criminal element’s oxygen supply. Today’s turnstile jumper might
easily be wanted for yesterday’s murder. That junkie peeing in an alley might have been
on his way to a robbery.
As violent crime began to fall dramatically, New Yorkers were more than happy to heap
laurels on their operatic, Brooklyn-bred mayor and his hatchet-faced police chief with the
big Boston accent. But the two strong-willed men weren’t very good at sharing the glory.
Soon after the city’s crime turnaround landed Bratton—and not Giuliani—on the cover of
Time, Bratton was pushed to resign. He had been police commissioner for just twenty-
seven months.
Page 82
New York City was a clear innovator in police strategies during the 1990s crime drop,
and it also enjoyed the greatest decline in crime of any large American city. Homicide
rates fell from 30.7 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 8.4 per 100,000 people in 2000, a
change of 73.6 percent. But a careful analysis of the facts shows that the innovative
policing strategies probably had little effect on this huge decline.
First, the drop in crime in New York began in 1990. By the end of 1993, the rate of
property crime and violent crime, including homicides, had already fallen nearly 20
percent. Rudolph Giuliani, however, did not become mayor—and install Bratton—until
early 1994. Crime was well on its way down before either man arrived. And it would
continue to fall long after Bratton was bumped from office.
Second, the new police strategies were accompanied by a much more significant change
within the police force: a hiring binge. Between 1991 and 2001, the NYPD grew by 45
percent, more than three times the national average. As argued above, an increase in the
number of police, regardless of new strategies, has been proven to reduce crime. By a
conservative calculation, this huge expansion of New York’s police force would be
expected to reduce crime in New York by 18 percent relative to the national average. If
you subtract that 18 percent from New York’s homicide reduction, thereby discounting
the effect of the police-hiring surge, New York no longer leads the nation with its 73.6
percent drop; it goes straight to the middle of the pack. Many of those new police were in
fact hired by David Dinkins, the mayor whom Giuliani defeated. Dinkins had been
desperate to secure the law-and-order vote, having known all along that his opponent
would be Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor. (The two men had run against each other
four years earlier as well.) So those who wish to credit Giuliani with the crime drop may
still do so, for it was his own law-and-order reputation that made Dinkins hire all those
police. In the end, of course, the police increase helped every-one—but it helped Giuliani
a lot more than Dinkins.
Most damaging to the claim that New York’s police innovations radically lowered crime
is one simple and often overlooked fact: crime went down everywhere during the 1990s,
not only in New York. Few other cities tried the kind of strategies that New York did,
and certainly none with the same zeal. But even in Los Angeles, a city notorious for bad
policing, crime fell at about the same rate as it did in New York once the growth in New
York’s police force is accounted for.
It would be churlish to argue that smart policing isn’t a good thing. Bill Bratton certainly
deserves credit for invigorating New York’s police force. But there is frighteningly little
evidence that his strategy was the crime panacea that he and the media deemed it. The
next step will be to continue measuring the impact of police innovations—in Los
Angeles, for instance, where Bratton himself became police chief in late 2002. While he
duly instituted some of the innovations that were his hallmark in New York, Bratton
announced that his highest priority was a more basic one: finding the money to hire
thousands of new police officers.
But it wasn’t only the number of police that changed in the 1990s; consider the most
commonly cited crime-drop explanation of all: innovative policing strategies.
There was perhaps no more attractive theory than the belief that smart policing stops
crime. It offered a set of bona fide heroes rather than simply a dearth of villains. This
theory rapidly became an article of faith because it appealed to the factors that, according
to John Kenneth Galbraith, most contribute to the formation of conventional wisdom: the
ease with which an idea may be understood and the degree to which it affects our
personal well-being.
The story played out most dramatically in New York City, where newly elected mayor
Rudolph Giuliani and his handpicked police commissioner, William Bratton, vowed to
fix the city’s desperate crime situation. Bratton took a novel approach to policing. He
ushered the NYPD into what one senior police official later called “our Athenian period,”
in which new ideas were given weight over calcified practices. Instead of coddling his
precinct commanders, Bratton demanded accountability. Instead of relying solely on old-
fashioned cop know-how, he introduced technological solutions like CompStat, a
computerized method of addressing crime hot spots.
The most compelling new idea that Bratton brought to life stemmed from the broken
window theory, which was conceived by the criminologists James Q. Wilson and George
Kelling. The broken window theory argues that minor nuisances, if left unchecked, turn
into major nuisances: that is, if someone breaks a window and sees it isn’t fixed
immediately, he gets the signal that it’s all right to break the rest of the windows and
maybe set the building afire too.
So with murder raging all around, Bill Bratton’s cops began to police the sort of deeds
that used to go unpoliced: jumping a subway turnstile, panhandling too aggressively,
urinating in the streets, swabbing a filthy squeegee across a car’s windshield unless the
driver made an appropriate “donation.”
Most New Yorkers loved this crackdown on its own merit. But they particularly loved the
idea, as stoutly preached by Bratton and Giuliani, that choking off these small crimes was
like choking off the criminal element’s oxygen supply. Today’s turnstile jumper might
easily be wanted for yesterday’s murder. That junkie peeing in an alley might have been
on his way to a robbery.
As violent crime began to fall dramatically, New Yorkers were more than happy to heap
laurels on their operatic, Brooklyn-bred mayor and his hatchet-faced police chief with the
big Boston accent. But the two strong-willed men weren’t very good at sharing the glory.
Soon after the city’s crime turnaround landed Bratton—and not Giuliani—on the cover of
Time, Bratton was pushed to resign. He had been police commissioner for just twenty-
seven months.
Page 82
New York City was a clear innovator in police strategies during the 1990s crime drop,
and it also enjoyed the greatest decline in crime of any large American city. Homicide
rates fell from 30.7 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 8.4 per 100,000 people in 2000, a
change of 73.6 percent. But a careful analysis of the facts shows that the innovative
policing strategies probably had little effect on this huge decline.
First, the drop in crime in New York began in 1990. By the end of 1993, the rate of
property crime and violent crime, including homicides, had already fallen nearly 20
percent. Rudolph Giuliani, however, did not become mayor—and install Bratton—until
early 1994. Crime was well on its way down before either man arrived. And it would
continue to fall long after Bratton was bumped from office.
Second, the new police strategies were accompanied by a much more significant change
within the police force: a hiring binge. Between 1991 and 2001, the NYPD grew by 45
percent, more than three times the national average. As argued above, an increase in the
number of police, regardless of new strategies, has been proven to reduce crime. By a
conservative calculation, this huge expansion of New York’s police force would be
expected to reduce crime in New York by 18 percent relative to the national average. If
you subtract that 18 percent from New York’s homicide reduction, thereby discounting
the effect of the police-hiring surge, New York no longer leads the nation with its 73.6
percent drop; it goes straight to the middle of the pack. Many of those new police were in
fact hired by David Dinkins, the mayor whom Giuliani defeated. Dinkins had been
desperate to secure the law-and-order vote, having known all along that his opponent
would be Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor. (The two men had run against each other
four years earlier as well.) So those who wish to credit Giuliani with the crime drop may
still do so, for it was his own law-and-order reputation that made Dinkins hire all those
police. In the end, of course, the police increase helped every-one—but it helped Giuliani
a lot more than Dinkins.
Most damaging to the claim that New York’s police innovations radically lowered crime
is one simple and often overlooked fact: crime went down everywhere during the 1990s,
not only in New York. Few other cities tried the kind of strategies that New York did,
and certainly none with the same zeal. But even in Los Angeles, a city notorious for bad
policing, crime fell at about the same rate as it did in New York once the growth in New
York’s police force is accounted for.
It would be churlish to argue that smart policing isn’t a good thing. Bill Bratton certainly
deserves credit for invigorating New York’s police force. But there is frighteningly little
evidence that his strategy was the crime panacea that he and the media deemed it. The
next step will be to continue measuring the impact of police innovations—in Los
Angeles, for instance, where Bratton himself became police chief in late 2002. While he
duly instituted some of the innovations that were his hallmark in New York, Bratton
announced that his highest priority was a more basic one: finding the money to hire
thousands of new police officers.