Just 20 years ago, New York City was
filled with crime: murders, burglaries, drug deals, and car thefts. New York’s
crime problems were not limited to a few inner-city neighborhoods that could be
avoided. Bryant Park, in the heart of midtown, was an open-air drug market;
Grand Central Terminal, a gigantic flophouse; the Port Authority Bus terminal,
a grim gauntlet for bus passengers dodging beggars, drunks, thieves, and
destitute drug addicts (Kelling, 2009). New York’s drop in crime during the
1990s was one of the most remarkable stories in the history of urban crime.
While other cities experienced major declines, none was as steep as New York’s.
As New York suffered, an idea began
to emerge that would one day restore the city. Nathan Glazer first gave it
voice in a 1979 Public Interest article, “On Subway
Graffiti
in New York,” arguing that graffitists, other disorderly persons, and criminals
who rob, rape, assault and murder are part of one world of uncontrollable
predators (Kelling, 2009). A government’s inability to control even a minor
crime like graffiti signaled to citizens that it certainly couldn’t handle more
serious ones. This thought can be linked to a policy carried out by former
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration. The most prominent of his policy
changes was the aggressive policing of lower-level crimes, a policy which has
been dubbed the “broken glass” approach to law enforcement (Francis, 2010). In
this view, small disorders lead to larger ones and perhaps even to crime. As
Mr. Giuliani told the press in 1998, “obviously murder and graffiti are two
vastly different crimes. But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate
that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.” According to Francis (2010), over the 1990s,
misdemeanor arrests increased 70 percent in New York City. When arrests for
misdemeanors had risen by 10 percent, indicating increased use of the “broken
windows” method, robberies dropped by 2.5 to 3.2 percent, and motor vehicle
theft declined by 1.6 to 2.1 percent.
It wasn’t just intellectuals who
were starting to study disorder and minor crimes. Policymakers like Deputy
Mayor Herb Sturz and private-sector leaders like Gerald Schoenfeld, chairman of
the Shubert organization, believed that disorderly conditions, prostitution,
scams, and drugs threatened the economy of Times Square. Under Sturz’s
leadership the NYPD developed Operation Crossroads in the late 1970s. The
project focused on minor offenses in the Times Square area; urged police to
develop high visibility, low arrest tactics, and attempted to measure police
performance by counting instances of disorderly behavior (Kelling, 2009). Despite
some initial success, Operation Crossroads was ultimately aborted. Later, the
police employed similar tactics in Bryant Park, again they met with early
success, but they eventually abandoned the attempt.
It
became clear that sporadic police programs weren’t enough. Only when a wide
range of agencies and institutions began to work on restoring public order did
real progress begin. In 1980, a second attempt to fix Bryant Park took off. The
Bryant Park Restoration Corporation used environmental design, maintenance,
private security, and other approaches inspired by the success of Rockefeller
Center. Similarly, in 1988, the Grand Central Partnership began reducing
disorder in the 75 blocks surrounding Grand Central by employing private
security and hiring the homeless to clean the streets (Kelling, 2009).
According to Kelling (2009) public
transportation was another area where public order became a priority. In 1984,
David Gunn, president of the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), began a
five-year program to eradicate graffiti from the subway trains. Then, in 1989,
Robert Kiley, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority, asked the transit police to focus on minor offenses. Some years
later, in the early nineties, the NYCTA adopted similar policing methods for
Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. Neighborhood organizations, too, began
demanding that order be restored (Kelling, 2009).
By the early 1990s these highly
visible successes, especially in the subway, had begun to express themselves
politically. Better than any other politician, Rudy Giuliani understood the
demand for public order and built his successful 1993 run for mayor on
quality-of-life themes (Kelling, 2009). Once in office, he appointed Bratton,
who had orchestrated the subway success and understood the importance of order
maintenance, as New York’s police commissioner. Under Bratton, the NYPD brought
enormous capacitates on the city’s crime problem, particularly from Compstat
and its tactical planning and accountability system. Compstat identified where
crimes were occurring and held local commanders responsible for their areas
(Francis, 2010). According to Kelling (2009) Giuliani and Bratton also gave the
force’s members a clear vision of the “business” of the NYPD and how their
activities contributed to it. In short, a theory previously advocated largely
by elites filtered down to, and inspired, line police offers, who had
constituted a largely ignored and underused capacity. Once the NYPD joined the
effort, the order-maintenance movement expanded even more.
It is clear that Giuliani and
Bratton were heroes in reclaiming public spaces, but its is important not to
forget that Sturz, Kiley, Gunn, and others set the stage for what was to
follow. Current mayor Michael Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly also
deserve recognition; rather than overturning the Bratton/Giuliani innovations,
they have adopted, refined, and strengthened them. It is important to remember
that the city owes its crime decline to a broad range of public and private
agencies. Maintaining the NYPD’s commitment to its proven crime-fighting methods
is crucial, but so is the broader citywide emphasis on public order.
Resources
Francis, David R. "What Reduced Crime in New York
City." The NationalBureau of
Economic Research. N.p., 16 Oct. 2012. Web.
18 Oct. 2012. http://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/w9061.html.
Kelling,
George L. "How New York Became Safe: The Full Story." City Journal.
N.p.,
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