How the mean streets of New York were tamed

[T_i_B]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,16937,1686655,00.html

The image of a heaving sea of vice and violence, plagued by racial tensions and corrupt City Hall politics, is out of date. That New York belongs only in the literature and films it inspired: The Bonfire of the Vanities, Serpico, A Bronx Tale. The figures speak for themselves. In 1990, 2,245 New Yorkers were murdered. Last year the number was 537, the lowest for 40 years. Figures for other crimes have also plummeted. Eight precincts, including the once notorious Central Park, recorded no violent deaths last year. Rape, assault, theft and muggings have all seen steep drops in the last 15 years. 'Something remarkable has happened in New York,' said David Kennedy, head of the centre for crime prevention and control at Manhattan's John Jay College.

Places once considered no-go areas have been gentrified and boast property prices among the most expensive in America. The subway system, once terrifying, is now a model of safety. Street crimes such as muggings have become rare in many places where they were once endemic. It is an experience that cities around the world have been desperate to mimic, but none has so far succeeded. Some say New York's experience is unique. 'Nothing like it has happened in criminology. We don't even have a word for it,' said Andrew Karmen, author of a book on the subject called New York Murder Mystery.

It used to be very different. In 1977 New York had a terrible summer. Looting and arson had broken out in the wake of a power blackout. The Son of Sam serial killer stalked the streets. Racial tension was everywhere. During a Yankees baseball game, as a huge factory went up in flames, a TV commentator on the match, remarked famously: 'There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning.'

Many experts believe the strongest reason for the transformation is also the most obvious: better policing. Dubbed 'zero tolerance' by the media and politicians, police embarked on a strategy in the Nineties aimed at cutting big crime by stamping out small crime. It was a theory summed up in the idea that, if you refused to tolerate vandalism and breaking windows, you could improve a neighbourhood and discourage more serious criminals from operating. By the end of the decade this concept was being mimicked across America and the rest of the world, including parts of Britain.

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Good article. Must be read in it's *entirety*.

Start paying attention when you get to the paragraph that begins: "The truth is far more complex."

[T_i_B]

2. I agree totally

It's a shame that I couldn't post the article in it's entirety but there you go. At least we have the link for DUer's to click on. :-)

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. I understand this part:

Amazingly, the city seems so safe to many of its citizens that there is now even a strand in its collective consciousness that feels nostalgic for the old days. New York's cherished self-image is tied up with toughness and being streetwise. 'There was a wildness in New York and that's been tamed, and perhaps something was lost,' said Jonathan Mahler, author of a study of Seventies New York, which was a surprise hit last year and reflected a fascination with the city's more torrid past.

Having grown up in NYC from the late-1970's - early-1990's, I certainly understand this part. There was something lost. Maybe what was gaqined is better. I don't know. Hell, it probably is. As another great New Yorker, Method Man, once said, It ain't easy bein' greasy...in this world full of cleanliness and, you know, all that other madness. The disciplinary societies of old were never quite ordered enough; the control societies of today are total. Which brings up another point: it is, ultimately outdated to continue to attribute these drops to policy. This is the whiff of fascism here: any bad trend comes from the population; any good trends comes from the authorities and police apparatus. Sure, Daddy. Could it also be that the communities themselves, fed up with the crack epidemic of the mid-late eighties (a terrible time in NYC, Bright Lights Big City notwithstanding), began policing themselves. Of course not, because that would mean people can act to reduce crime without criminologists, and that the salutary "gentrifications" of their neighborhoods (positively skipping is the author over this point!) were little more than thefts and negative reward?

[oscarmitre]

4. The whole article is an excellent read.

For me the final lines - that government isn't willing to analyse the real causes - is important. It suits a lot of people to allow the received wisdom that ZTP has achieved this drop in crime. You only have to look at Boston and its reaction to the gang problem and how the police there specifically rejected ZTP as a solution in favour of more complex responses involving all sectors of the community not just the criminal justice system, to see a better alternative to ZTP.

More effective and efficient policing is definitely part of a successful response to crime but by itself it's just treating the symptoms. It might be unfashionable to state that the causes of crime (crimogenic conditions) also need to be treated but to get long term crime reduction it's essential.

Thanks for posting the link - and has been stated, the whole article must be read.

[pretzel4gore]

5. stalinist russian and nazi germany were paragons of law'n'order!

hell, we were all young in the 70's 80's! they waited 'til the boomer demographic moved past before they REALLY REALLY tried the nazi/stalinist model, cuz it would not have worked in the old days (and might well have exposed the true causes of so much of what was and is still wrong; institutionalised hypocrisy, racism, greed and fine tuned/programmed media dishonesty)
"nothing fails like success when working for the devil"
go gopig go!
lol
:)

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. It's not that easy

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the New York of my youth. It was rough. At the same time, there's something unseemly about the way this order was created and the way it is sustained. But we shouldn't get into a silly game whereby the new New York is "Stalinist" while the old New york was some paradise of free living. One is just as oppressed by galloping criminality as one is by stifling order emanating from government and its police apparatus. I'm not arguing that one should "find a balance" or any such other "moderate" nonsense, but simply that analysis of these trends is impoverished by slogans and easy binaries.

[Laughing Mirror]

7. The rich got richer and gobbled up everything their grubby paws could

The poor got poorer and got hauled off to jail. There was a decline in the population. The yuppies flooded into the city during the Reagan regime and chased everybody else away. That's what happened to NYC. Street crime and murders might have gone down, but what about white collar Wall Street crime? The cops just look the other way. Those criminals seldom get caught. In fact, they are treated as some sort of New York heroes. Yes, NY has definitely lost its appeal. You walk down the street and all you see are a bunch of ignorant rich white slobs buying up real estate, talking like Drew Barrymore. Creative people can't afford to live there anymore and there are no kinds of jobs to sustain them. Unemployment among African-American males of working age is more than 51%.

When the yuppies lose their shirts when the economy finally crashes, things may start to change again. But as it is for now, the place is not much fun anymore, and is extremely taxing for those who are simultaenously too poor to get out to somewhere better and too poor to stay.

I bet it doesn't feel like crime is doing down if you live in East New York.

[NYC]

8. Murder rate is down because medical skills are up.

That was reported a few weeks ago.