Free Republic

A crime-fighting theory that says stopping major crimes begins with stopping small ones has influenced policing strategies in Boston and elsewhere since the 1980s. But scholars are starting to question whether fixing broken windows really fixes much at all. ON THURSDAY, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced a new initiative. The Boston Police Department, he said, will be cracking down on misdemeanor offenses, including loud parties, unleashed dogs, public drinking, and even littering. ''Today we are addressing what may sometimes appear to be smaller issues," the mayor said at a press conference, ''but for those of us familiar with the 'broken...

In 2001, New York Times... liberal columnist Anthony Lewis was asked: "Have you changed your views on socialism?" Lewis' answer: "I'm still for it. But it doesn't work." ...Never underestimate "the power of bad ideas." No matter how successful some of the policies... since the early '90s have been, they'll always have critics on the left who treat accountability, self-reliance and high standards as the enemies of the downtrodden.... Welfare reform: One of the biggest successes of the Giuliani administration was its program of welfare reform, launched long before the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996. When Giuliani came into...

“The news for New York City is spectacular," New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a City Hall press conference on May 24. He and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly [Email him] were claiming credit for new FBI crime stats showing major crimes—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, car theft, larceny and arson—dropping 5.8% in the city in 2003. New York’s crime rate now ranks it 211th of the 230 U.S. cities with 100,000-plus population—behind Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas. Unfortunately, there must have been at least one skeptic at the press conference. Hizzoner reportedly “bristled” at suggestions that...

We are Family When I was a teenager, it never would have occurred to me to blame the police, if I committed a crime or otherwise got in trouble, much less sue them. That´s probably because my mother never taught me to blame the police, and beat the hell out of me when I got in trouble; because I personally knew hero cops; and because no community of solidarity awaited me, if I sought to blame my troubles on the police. A substantial proportion of the adults in most urban black neighborhoods today – in some areas, the vast...