U-M Professor: War on Crime Fueled Detroit's Decline

[bust]

Let's celebrate the good stats together.

I'm happy to celebrate NYC's reduction in crime with you. Great news.

You and clearly many others have become fond of imposing rules on the police.

I do hope that NYC crime keeps falling, even as DiBlasio reduces the focus on minor crimes [[turnstile jumping, spitting, jaywalking, illegal vending, etc.).

A few clarifications:

1) It's the 4th Amendment to our Constitution that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Any rules intended to ensure police conform to that important tenet are supplementary and in service of that.

2) I haven't noticed any fewer police camped out on the watch for turnstile jumpers under De Blasio. And it is Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance who decided not to prosecute turnstile jumping. [[AM New York) Vance is the same Manhattan DA infamous for overruling his own prosecutors and dropping a fraud investigation against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., all while accepting $50,000 from their lawyer. [[The New Yorker) De Blasio opposes this, and wants to keep turnstile jumping an offense punishable by arrest. [[Gothamist)

3) Spitting? Do you really think NYC police signed up for the force to be spending their time on that? [[Gothamist) In any case, I doubt there has been any directive from De Blasio how to handle this offense.

4) Under De Blasio NYC police have been cracking down on jaywalking like New York has not seen for a very long time. [[Citylab)

5) Illegal vending? You mean like loose cigarettes? See the Gothamist article again. Enforcing that rule was what led to Eric Garner's senseless death. [[NY Times) And weeks of massive protests against police brutality. And a rift between police and so many ordinary citizens of New York. [[The Guardian, The NY Times) I haven't heard that De Blasio instructed police to pull back on enforcing illegal vending rules, but if so, good call.

Crime is on the downswing in NYC, to be sure. Stopping S&F and Quality of Life policing [[broken windows if you will) probably won't end the slide. But I believe it pulls in the wrong direction.

Broken windows policing hasn't ended in New York City. It has merely been reformed. The reforms seem to be working.

Meanwhile, the police slowdown of 2015 [[Vox) did provide an opportunity to test what happens when broken windows policing really does come to a halt. For about a month New York City police stopped responding to anything except serious crimes.

The first thing people noticed was a sharp decline in city revenue, to the order of $5M. [[NY Times) Ticketing people for things like jaywalking, turnstile jumping, spitting, and illegal vending is lucrative for the city. I take Reason.com with a heavy grain of salt, and I definitely don't trust the NY Post [[whom Reason quotes), but in case you do, they said the loss of revenue was to the order of $10M per week, according to a report I could not find they say was published by the Citizens' Budget Commission. [[Reason.com)

But there was another, less expected result: crime dropped. A Los Angeles Times article cites a study published in the Journal of Human Behavior about the event:

“The scientists found that civilian complaints of major crimes dropped by about 3% to 6% during the slowdown.”

“Each week during the slowdown saw civilians report an estimated 43 fewer felony assaults, 40 fewer burglaries and 40 fewer acts of grand larceny. And this slight suppression of major crime rates actually continued for seven to 14 weeks after those drops in proactive policing — which led the researchers to estimate that overall, the slowdown resulted in about 2,100 fewer major-crimes complaints.”

If libertarianism is your thing, Reason covered this too. [[Reason article)

They were so unsurprised by this outcome, here was their reaction: "Duh!"

Or maybe you prefer the BBC. [[BBC article)

As we know, correlation does not indicate causation. But a question to those who claim broken windows policing is key to crime reduction: what's your explanation?

We both agree that S&F as it was being done in NYC needed to be done better.

Wesley, I'm glad we can find some agreement on this. But I'm hoping for some of your own clarification. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you lean toward libertarianism. Do you believe in the liberty to walk to the corner store without being stopped and frisked by the police? At night, in Brownsville, while black or latino? I do it all the time, and I've never had a problem. And in some rough neighborhoods. But not in Brownsville, and I'm not black or latino. Do I deserve that liberty, and the black or latino young man in Brownsville does not? I doubt you'll say yes. But it has worked out that way. What should be done about it?

For the record, I'm strongly in favor of sensible law and order. But the sensible part means I think we should direct our police efforts toward protecting our citizens against offenses with a focus ruthlessly organized in priority order. Public safety, not revenue generation. I think NYC police union president Pat Lynch agrees with that. [[Politico) And public safety should not come at the expense of our constitutional rights, nor with the heavy social cost of discrimination. Hell no.

Sources:

Turnstile jumping won’t be prosecuted in Manhattan starting this fall, DA Vance says
https://www.amny.com/news/turnstile-...ays-1.13775175

How Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., Avoided a Criminal Indictment
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-...nal-indictment

De Blasio: Turnstile Jumping Is 'Not An Economic Issue' For NYers Who Get Arrested
http://gothamist.com/2017/08/09/nyc_...re_beating.php

NYC Cops Ticket Man For Spitting
http://gothamist.com/2015/04/19/vide...rownsville.php

The Fuzzy Logic of a Jaywalking Crackdown in New York
https://www.citylab.com/transportati...new-york/8228/

Beyond the Chokehold: The Path to Eric Garner’s Death
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/n...en-island.html

Eric Garner protests continue in cities across America through second night
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...h-second-night

25,000 March in New York to Protest Police Violence
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/n...rner-case.html

The NYPD “slowdown” that’s cut arrests in New York by half, explained
https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953...-arrests-union

The NYPD Slowdown Is Working, Let's Keep It
http://gothamist.com/2015/01/07/brok...ws_forever.php

Police Slowdown Cost New York City an Estimated $5 Million in Lost Fines
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/n...ost-fines.html

NYPD Slowdown Resulting in $10 Million Less a Week in Parking Tickets
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/09/ny...-10-million-le

In New York, major crime complaints fell when cops took a break from ‘proactive policing’
http://beta.latimes.com/science/scie...925-story.html

Study: NYPD Slowdown in Petty Law Enforcement Saw Reduction in Major Crimes Complaints
Evidence against broken windows policing.
http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/26/st...in-petty-law-e

Is New York police's 'virtual work stoppage' a boon for critics?
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30659528

Police union gives to Ken Thompson, despite their differences
https://www.politico.com/states/new-...erences-000000