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***...In Times Square, prostitutes and hustlers roamed the streets, vandalism was rampant, and drug sales were widespread. “Squeegee men” ripped off drivers by dumping dirty water on their car windows and charging them to clean it up. Litter, graffiti and the stench of urine were everywhere.

Adam Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker, “Hell wafted up through the manhole covers.”

Businesses suffered, and theaters began shutting down due to poor ticket sales. Those theaters that did survive often converted to adult movie houses.

“The theater district — like the Statue of Liberty and Wall Street — is a symbol of this city,” Weinberg said. “Our great fear was if you lost the theater district, you’d lose the city. People wouldn’t live here, they wouldn’t work here, they wouldn’t raise their children here.”

In response, former Mayor David Dinkins added thousands of police officers to the streets, and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani focused on community policing in which officers pursue perpetrators of less-serious crimes as a way to curb more serious ones.

But as the misdemeanor arrests began piling up, the taxed court system relied on a triage approach. Those who were arrested sometimes received a summons to appear in court 30 days later, during which they could continue perpetrating their crimes. Or, they were sent to jail and soon released with sentences of time served.

The New York State Unified Court System, the city of New York and the Fund for the City of New York, a private nonprofit group, collaborated to open the Midtown Community Court in response.

It costs the city and state $1.7 million, a figure supplemented with private donations from companies including Ford and Merck.

Now, 30 cities around the United States have replicated the court — including liberal enclaves such as Austin, Texas, and conservative ones, such as Lynchburg, Va....***

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/29/MNGI3PHO3O1.DTL