New York incarceration, prisoners:
Posted on 01/06/2008 12:21:32 PM PST by knighthawk
New York City just ended 2007 with the lowest number of murders - below 500 - since 1963, the last year exact comparisons are possible. This homicide drop, from a high of 2,245 in1990, is unmatched anywhere in the country or in the annals of policing. It is long past time for New Yorkers to acknowledge the debt that they owe to their police force.
But the significance of the city's crime drop extends beyond the metropolis. It overthrows decades of conventional wisdom about social control and behavior change.
The reason for the city's crime rout is clear: The NYPD combines superb management with massive manpower. Since the mid-1990s, when the city's crime rate started its free fall, top brass and precinct commanders have excelled in developing crime control innovations. Prime among them has been Compstat, the computer-aided analysis sessions that hold precinct commanders accountable for public safety in their jurisdictions. To his credit, Commissioner Raymond Kelly has maintained Compstat, which originated under rival Commissioner William Bratton in 1994.
The intense and focused Kelly has added innovations of his own. Operation Impact floods crime hot spots with rookie officers, who walk foot beats. The Real-Time Crime Center gets data on potential suspects and related crime patterns into the hands of detectives within minutes of a crime, allowing them to track down perps more quickly. Officers now visit domestic violence victims to check on their well-being, resulting in a 40% drop in domestic homicides over three years. And the Kelly-era NYPD has continued the nuts and bolts of effective policing - stop-and-frisks toget guns off the street and enforcement of quality-of-life laws - despite carping from the usual critics.
It is impossible to overstate how distasteful the NYPD's success is to the criminology profession, which is committed to the idea that policing can do little to lower crime. During the 1990s, criminologists attributed New York's crime drop to anything but policing. Since 2000, when their arguments began to appear even more absurd, they have simply gone silent and are assiduously looking the other way.
But the conclusion is unavoidable: Well-run policing is society's most powerful public safety tool. Since the 1960s, New York has spent billions on redistributionist social programs that were supposed to eradicate poverty and with it, the dysfunctional behaviors of the underclass. Yet by the start of the 1990s, packs of feral youths roamed subways and parks maiming and murdering. Thugs armed with military weaponry controlled whole neighborhoods. Today, those neighborhoods thrive with commerce and family life, thanks to the NYPD.
The city must honor the foot soldiers in the conquest of crime, in both word and deed. Officers' starting salaries of $25,100 are an insult and a threat to the quality of the force; the cops must get a raise. But equally important, anti-cop agitators must no longer be allowed to dominate the public discourse about policing. The NYPD is among the most restrained big-city forces. Officer shootings are at record lows. A recent Rand Corp. study confirmed the obvious: Officers respond to suspicious activity, not to race. If the anti-cop brigade had any interest in actually spending time with officers and learning what they do, it would discover their passionate commitment to law-abiding members of poor, minority communities, who, the police believe, have as much right to live free of fear as residents of Park Ave.
Next time cop-bashers like the Rev. Al Sharpton and City Councilman Charles Barron are on a rampage, it would be nice if city leaders actually spoke up for the cops, given how much they have done for New York. There is no reason to think that the NYPD won't continue lowering crime in 2008; proven tools of policing will continue to deter opportunistic crime and apprehend and lock away criminals who are not deterrable. The city can show its gratitude by ignoring the provocateurs who make a living by demonizing the police.
Mac Donald, a contributing editor at City Journal, is author of the book "Are Cops Racist?"
By Heather Mac Donald
The achievement is undebatable
Ping
And gun control had nothing to do with it.
Now, repeal the Sullivan Acts, and watch the crime rate fall further.
Will “Law and Order” move to another city?
Just think how much more the murder rate would have gone down if citizens had the right to carry.
Great minds.
Stop and frisk sounds like an illegal search. But hey I guess if it gets those evil guns off the street. NYC is now a police state and crowing about it.
Outside of New York City, the practices for the issuance of concealed carry licenses vary from county to county within New York State. In New York City, the licensing authority is the police department, which rarely issues carry licenses to anyone except retired police officers. In addition, New Yorkers who have political influence, wealth, or celebrity appear to be issued licenses more liberally. [1] The New York Post, the New York Sun, and other newspapers have obtained the list of licensees through Freedom of Information Law requests and have published several articles showing that the wealthy, famous, and politically connected have been issued carry licenses by the city police department.
Current and past New York City (pistol)license holders include:
* Senator Charles Schumer
* Don Imus
* Harvey Keitel
* Joseph Bruno
* Ronald Lauder
* Edgar Bronfman, Sr.
* Howard Stern
* Donald Trump
* William F. Buckley Jr.
* Joan Rivers
* Arthur Hays Sulzberger
* Robert DeNiro
—having seen on the internet within the last year or so that any type controlled substance is available at any time in NYC by merely making a cell phone call to numbers easily available to practically anyone, I am of the firm belief that the drug trade is in a near monopoly situation, so that there is no need for disputes over distribution-—contributing mightily to the low murder rate—
New York incarceration, prisoners:
but but but, I thought it was Rudy that was causing crime to decrease in NYC... He’s not mayor anymore, this must all be lies!
/s
The cops do this to turnstile-jumpers, weed smokers, and other low-level crime perps as a matter of course. They turn up lots of folks who've jumped bail, broken parole, etc., and put them behind bars.
The greatest beneficiaries of this policy are folks of color, who suffered the highest murder rates under the Dinkins/Democrat regimes.
High rates of AIDS among needle-using drug addicts and among inmates in prisons and jails has also removed a large number of criminals from the active criminal population.
After the toll and subway fare increases this week, I expect even more murderers to be priced out of the 5 boroughs.
1. Cop needs "reasonable suspicion" -- not full "probable casue" but not just at random -- say, people loitering around a liquor store without going in.
2. can only search to the extent of self-protection -- "frisk" for weapons, not "search" for drugs, stolen cash, etc.
Yes, I would credit Giuliani for the good police work. It was set up under his watch. Thankfully Bloomberg hasn’t reversed course, as I would have expected, but allows the police to continue with their earlier policies.
Bratten gets credit, too. But he’s now in L.A., and the policing is lousy, because a good police chief can’t do anything under a lousy mayor.
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