During the 1990s, New York City experienced significant drops in all forms of crime and disorder. According to official data gathered from the New York City Police Department (NYPD), between 1990 and 1998, violent index offenses fell over 50% and property felonies dropped by over 60%. Murder alone dropped from a high of 2,262 in 1990 to 645 in 1998 – a decline of over 70%. Robbery, the “bellwether crime” that is the general gauge of violence in the city, also dropped significantly – from a high of 100,280 in 1990 to 39,357 by 1998 – a 60%) decline.
While many cities across the United States benefited from declining crime rates in the 90s, New York’s achievements are among the most heralded. For example, the drop in the sheer number of homicides in NYC alone accounts for a substantial proportion of murder reduction in the nation as a whole (Blumstein & Rosenfeld, 1998).
Few debate that New York has become a safer place since the late 80s and early 90s. Nevertheless, many disagree as to the causes of the crime reduction. Some claim that starting in the early 90s, changes in NYPD management, policies, and practices all had major impacts on crime rates. Others however, claim that while there may have been changes in policing in the early 90s, the fact that these changes accompanied the decline in crime is more of an historical coincidence – crime would have gone down regardless of police intervention as a result of other factors that influence illegal activity.
Despite the considerable discussion among criminologists, politicians, practitioners, and the media, few have offered any real evidence as to the causes of declining crime rates in the city – rather, debates over these causes continue (and may always continue), often ending in speculation. This paper provides a critical analysis of the community policing initiative which contributed to the rapid decline in crime in NYC during the 1990s.
The Debate – A Brief Anecdote
During the plenary session of the 1999 NIJ Research and Evaluation Conference, two of the panelists, Professor Richard Curtis of John Jay College and Chief Charles Ramsey of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department, debated the causes of crime reduction in the United States during the 1990s.1 Drawing on ethnographic research in several communities in New York City, Curtis offered that changes in drug markets have accounted for substantial drops in crime. More specifically, his research suggested that inner city youths became acutely aware of the social ills and unchecked violence associated with the crack-cocaine era of the late 80s and early 90s.
Realizing the damage caused by crack and heroin, inner city youths began to make conscious decisions to avoid the use and distribution of these narcotics. Their decisions, Curtis claimed, subsequently resulted in the restructuring of drug conditions, the reduction in violence, and the decline in overall criminal activity. These effects occurred independent of demographic factors and police efforts to control crime2.
Ramsey developed a different position. Although he acknowledged that changing drug markets may have influenced crime patterns in the specific areas that Curtis studied, the same could not be said for other places that had benefited from declines in crime. Indeed, in describing his experiences, Ramsey indicated that crack was still a significant problem in many communities. In addition, many youths had not yet come to the realization that drugs and violence were powers of the past to be shunned by those in the present. Ramsey however, was not so quick to suggest an explanation for crime reduction, and only reluctantly offered his opinion that improvements in the economy probably had an influence.
It initially appeared, at least to this author, that Ramsey was developing an argument that would credit improved methods of policing as a major reason for crime reduction nationwide. Instead however, he led his comments down a different (and somewhat surprising) path. He first indicated that, as chief, he would not take credit for crime drops because he did not want the police to be held responsible when crime inevitably starts to increase.
Indeed, he said, if efforts to address social causes of crime are not implemented now, there could be significant spikes in crime as the teenage population increases over the next decade. Second, while he acknowledged benefits of the community policing philosophy, he suggested that community policing happened to hit the United States at a fortuitous time – an historical coincidence that gives the illusion that community policing had an impact on crime, even though crime would have gone down anyway as the result of unknown social factors.
The Debate – Explanations of Criminal Activity
The discussants’ remarks at the plenary session summarized above raise two major questions that remain at the forefront of criminological debate. The first (admittedly global) question relates generally to crime trends at the societal and communal levels in the United States during the 1990s: What are the underlying causes of crime and disorder in communities, and, more specific to the discussion above, what are the factors that cause crime to increase and decrease? The second question, related to the first but more relevant to this dissertation, is directed specifically at crime control efforts: Can the police and/or other agencies of criminal justice proactively reduce crime, or can they only react to changing patterns that are beyond their influence?
Changes in Policing as the Explanation for Crime Reduction in New York
As crime dropped nationally and in New York in the 90s, a variety of opinions were offered as explanations. One leading argument gave politicians and policy makers credit for various improved and/or innovative crime reduction policies. In New York specifically, many cite crucial managerial and operational changes within the police department as the primary impetus for crime reduction in the city.
Supporters of this position in NYC focus on the administrations of Mayor Rudolph “Rudy” Guiliani and his first police commissioner, William Bratton. Starting with Guiliani’s appointment of Bratton in 1994, NYPD experienced fundamental transformations in administration and operations. Bratton, borrowing from private-sector management theory and drawing on his experiences as head of the NYC Transit Police and the Boston Police departments (among others), implemented a focused theory of action to address the crime problem in New York (Kelling & Bratton, 1998; Bratton, 1998). This theory of action emphasized assertive order-maintenance policing by line personnel, as well as methods of managerial accountability for police supervisors of all ranks (see generally, Bratton, 1998; Kelling &Bratton, 1998; Maple, 1999; Silverman, 1999).
Steep declines in criminal activity followed the implementation of Bratton’s policies and later continued through the administrations of NYPD’s next commissioners, Howard Safir, Bernard Kerik, and most recently, Raymond Kelly.
Bratton’s emphasis on proactive order-maintenance, which has been described as a marked difference from the reactive mode of policing NYPD was accustomed to (Kelling & Bratton, 1998), was grounded in the ‘broken windows’ hypothesis developed by Wilson and Kelling (1982). As is well known, Wilson and Kelling reasoned that disorder and other ‘minor’ offenses are linked to more serious violence and criminal activity in a developmental sequence.3
Therefore, if the police, working with the community, can control disorder and ‘minor’ offenses, more serious criminal activity can be averted. Bratton had had success applying this theory to reduce crime in the New York City subways when he was head of the Transit Police (Kelling & Coles, 1996).4 He applied similar strategies in New York when he became commissioner several years later.
More is to be said about the ‘broken windows’ theory, Bratton’s theory of action, and the current strategies of the NYPD later in this document – indeed, these are all key components to the development of the questions addressed in this brief critique. For now however, suffice it to say that a lead argument in the New York City crime reduction story gives credit to improved and innovative methods of policing, first instituted under Bratton and continuing through to the present.
In order to offer a balanced critique on crime reduction, it is at least prudent to mention some of the factors which may contribute to this reduction. Two of the most important factors are demographic and social changes. As with economic revitalization, changing demographic patterns (particularly changes in the youth population) are often offered as potential explanations for fluctuating crime rates.
Indeed, the age-crime connection is perhaps the most often recognized and studied in the social sciences. Examinations of the aggregate age-crime curve reveal that crime tends to peak sharply in late adolescence and then declines (at first slowly, then more rapidly) through young adulthood to eventual desistance in later adulthood (Blumstein et al, 1986, 23). Although some debate arose during the mid-1980s concerning the true interpretation of the age-crime curve, it is generally accepted that crime is by and large a youthful pursuit, particularly involving young males in their mid to late teens and early twenties (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983; Farrington, 1986; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).
In fact, there is often the unquestioned assumption that “[t]he nation’s Crime Index rate… is likely to be strongly affected by the age composition of the population” (Steffensmeier & Harer, 1999, 237).
In addition to criminal justice innovations, economic revitalization, and demographic fluctuations, there are a host of other opinions offered by social scientists, policy analysts and journalists that attempt to explain crime reduction in NYC and in the United States. Many of these explanations imply that fundamental social or cultural changes occurred that caused the reversal of the upward crime trends of the late 80s and early 90s.
Some explanations that have been offered include declining alcohol consumption (Parker & Cartmill, 1998), improved emergency medical services, statistical regression to mean crime rates, an overall “civilizing process” of the general population, better community and neighborhood anti-crime organization, and positive changes in the legitimacy of political and social institutions, such as education, welfare, and family stability (LaFree, 1998; 1999). However, perhaps the most often discussed social factor that has been linked to the decline in crime in the country (and certainly in NYC) is fluctuations in drug use, particularly trends involving crack cocaine.
While an association between drugs and crime has been studied for some time, the relationship between the crime spike of the late 80s and early 90s and the crack epidemic during the same years has received considerable attention. At the national level, the argument generally goes that the expansion of crack cocaine markets (which began in the mid-80s in poor, urban areas) and the later contraction of those markets (in the early to mid-90s) coincide with crime increases and decreases over the same time period. While there is relatively little scientific evidence that links crack to crime in a causal fashion, the apparent correlation between crack trends and rates of violence has resulted in one of the more popular explanations for fluctuations in national violent crime rates according to the media and criminological discourse.
A number of reasons are offered for why crack is associated with crime, especially violent crime. Some hypothesize that the addictive nature of crack, its stimulant effect, and the economic burden it places on users, forces users to resort to illegitimate means (such as robbery) in order to fuel their habit (Lattimore et al, 1997; Riley, 1998). Others suggest that the “market” atmosphere of crack selling accounts for increasing violence (especially homicide) among dealers as they compete for control over turf (Lattimore et al, 1997; Riley, 1998), and decreasing violence as the markets naturally “mature” over time (Blumstein & Rosenfeld, 1998).
In light of the information presented here, one can clearly see the underlying debate with regards to the efficacy of the community policing efforts set forth by the NYPD. One does not debate the fact that there was a significant decrease in crime which is coincidental with the new community policing efforts. The debate however does involve the notion that the new policing initiative was single-handedly responsible for this decrease. One can only add some clarity to the subject and speculate at best but there will be no definite answer.
References
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Footnotes
- The Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation. Washington, DC. July 18, 1999. The plenary session discussion is summarized in: Sudhir Venkatesh, Richard Curtis, and Charles H. Ramsey (1999), “Looking at Crime From the Street Level: Plenary Papers of the 1999 Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation – Enhancing Policy and Practice Through Research, Volume 1.” National Institute of Justice Research Forum, November 1999, NCJ178260.
- Curtis’ remarks at the conference are reflected in several of his writings. See, for example, Curtis (1999).
- Disorder and ‘minor’ offenses refer to a wide range of acts and conditions that may or may not be wrongs in the legal sense, but can be described as “incivility, boorish and threatening behavior that disturbs life, especially urban life” (Kelling and Coles, 1996: 14). Disorder can generally be classified into two groupings – social and physical (Skogan, 1990). Social disorders include such behaviors as public drinking and drug use, aggressive panhandling, youth gangs who loiter and harass, and street prostitution. Physical disorders include such conditions as litter, vandalism, graffiti, and abandoned vehicles and buildings.
- While Bratton’s policies in the subways were comprised of many tactics, an example that perhaps best illustrates the application of the ‘broken windows’ theory involved assertive enforcement of laws against fare beaters. Essentially, police enforcement of fare beating laws was followed by a significant reduction in robberies in the subways. This tactic, along with its link to ‘broken windows,’ is described in detail by Kelling and Coles (1996).