Why Did Crime Fall in NY

Please note the mention that not only has crime fallen in New York, but the prison population has declined as well.

Did the “broken windows” strategy and CompStat drive down crime in New York City in the 1990s?

Both strategies are indelibly linked to former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his first police commissioner, William J. Bratton.

Social scientists and criminologists have endlessly debated the extent to which effective policing was truly responsible for the drop in crime, compared with other factors like the higher incarceration rate, improved economic conditions, the lessening of the crack cocaine epidemic, a relative reduction in the numbers of 16- to 24-year-olds and even the abortion rate.

A new round of the debate took place this morning in Manhattan, during the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. The meeting, which continues through Tuesday, drew some 6,100 sociologists this year from around the world.

Among the three experts who gave presentations, the consensus seemed to be that effective policing matters – but not nearly as much as Mr. Giuliani and other city officials (including his successor Michael R. Bloomberg) have claimed.

First, some context. The broken windows theory, pioneered by George L. Kelling and often lumped together with the notion of zero-tolerance policing, holds that aggressive enforcement against minor quality-of-life crimes, like loitering and fare-beating, deters further petty crime and ultimately drives down major crime. Compstat is the computerized system Mr. Bratton and one of his top deputies, Jack Maple, devised to keep track of crime problems and hold police commanders accountable for addressing the most crime-prone areas.

NY TIMES