Sorry guys, there'll be no Wilding tonight...

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

how about "hoodlums", "scofflaws" or "dirtbags"?

I'm kind of partial to hooligans and shenanigans

"It wasn't Giuliani's broken window policy... it was a corresponding change in a major drug trade. Most sociologists consider Giuliani's policy officially debunked.
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/harcourt/broken-window-myth.html";

Nah - it was Giuliani's crackdown on quality of life issues - it made a HUGE difference in this city - ask any police officer. Better yet, ask a lot of common, law abiding people whether it was better and safer before the crackdown or after. This ridiculous article states that people's "civil liberties" were being violated?? Prior to the crackdown, many MORE people's civil liberties were being violated because of being constant victims of violent crimes, being continually harassed and threatened by window washers, pan handlers, and many other types of assaults by thugs and criminals. It was wonderful when my - and other law abiding people - got their civil liberties back and have been able in the past few years - thanks in large part to Giuliani - to walk down the street again in a safer city and not be subjected to really awful crap. Not a perfect city - but MUCH safer than it was! Giuliani made this city much more attractive for a lot of people on this board to move into. I doubt many of you guys on this board would have wanted to move here in the 70's or 80's - it really was a cesspool.

Look, I'm not against Giuliani or the policy in any way.

All I know is that giving Giuliani credit for the reduction in crime is like giving Clinton credit for the Internet boom (when we all know Al Gore invented the Internet ;-)). Giuliani's policy just happened to run at the same time as a major shift in crack cocaine: thus the Broken Window policy was a spurious relationship and had no real effect on crime. They've tried it in many other cities and it proved to be a total failure. Talking to cops during that time will only prove that crime went down: which I completely agree with. The real issue, however, is the drug war. That's all I'm saying.

I love that everything is cleaner around here... but it did not reduce crime.

"jack maple was the brain behind giuliani's success."

I never heard of him before and just did a Google search. Sounds like he was a brilliant man! From Government Technology:

"I called them the Charts of the Future. On 55 feet of wall space, I mapped every train station in New York City and every train," Maple recently explained. "Then I used crayons to mark every violent crime, robbery and grand larceny that occurred. I mapped the solved vs. the unsolved."

Later, when William Bratton was hired by the Transit Police to cut crime, Maple showed him the charts, and between 1990 and 1992 they cut felonies in the caves by 27 percent and robberies by a third.

In 1994, when Bratton was appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to head the NYPD, the new commissioner made the flamboyant Maple his second-in-command. The move, likened to promoting a Navy ensign to admiral, ruffled many feathers. But using computerized Charts of the Future, precinct commanders were held accountable for crimes in their area. For the first time that anyone could remember, crime in New York City began to decline.

COMSTAT was born. COMSTAT is a process by which crime statistics are collected, computerized, mapped and disseminated quickly. Officers are held responsible for the crime in their areas, and all crimes, including the "quality of life" infractions like loitering or public intoxication, are pursued aggressively. The program has become the talk of squad rooms nationwide.

I hope like hell that they released these guys with summonses. Putting teenagers through the system for jumping turnstiles is a great way for the NYPD to ensure they have terrible relations with certain segments of the public for another generation or two.

hamilton, i'm glad you posted it here. they don't look like thugs and i think jumping turnstiles is not a serious crime. but i do like for these boards to inform me of whats happening in the area that i might not have heard about

jf22561 wrote: "jack maple was the brain behind giuliani's success."

I never heard of him before and just did a Google search. Sounds like he was a brilliant man! From Government Technology:

"I called them the Charts of the Future. On 55 feet of wall space, I mapped every train station in New York City and every train," Maple recently explained. "Then I used crayons to mark every violent crime, robbery and grand larceny that occurred. I mapped the solved vs. the unsolved."

Later, when William Bratton was hired by the Transit Police to cut crime, Maple showed him the charts, and between 1990 and 1992 they cut felonies in the caves by 27 percent and robberies by a third.

In 1994, when Bratton was appointed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to head the NYPD, the new commissioner made the flamboyant Maple his second-in-command. The move, likened to promoting a Navy ensign to admiral, ruffled many feathers. But using computerized Charts of the Future, precinct commanders were held accountable for crimes in their area. For the first time that anyone could remember, crime in New York City began to decline.

COMSTAT was born. COMSTAT is a process by which crime statistics are collected, computerized, mapped and disseminated quickly. Officers are held responsible for the crime in their areas, and all crimes, including the "quality of life" infractions like loitering or public intoxication, are pursued aggressively. The program has become the talk of squad rooms nationwide.

There's a famous story I heard (it's probably Google-able) that after Bill Bratton and Jack Maple cleaned up NYC, the City of New Orleans asked Jack Maple to come down to help them clean up the crime in New Orleans. Maple went down there for a period of time and then came back to NYC and said, "I can't help New Orleans," apparently showing how far gone/corrupt New Orleans was that even Maple couldn't fix it.

COMSTAT was also covered on "The Wire". There are real problems with using numbers to police cities. It just shunts the problems from one district to the next.

Compstat also encourages police officers to refuse to take police reports because it raises their crime numbers. It happened to me last Summer.

The sergeant (or whatever he was) refused to take my report for something minor. I insisted and he said he wouldn't take it and dismissed me by walking away. I reported him to Internal Affairs and it's been bounced around to other agencies. I finally got a call from a detective around March (!!). When I told him what the police officer had been wearing, he said, "That guy is more senior than me. I'm probably not going to be able to help you." He then said he was going to forward it to the precinct where I had this problem. I told him that no one would do anything there because this person was their boss. I haven't heard a word since.

The point of stopping fare jumpers is that it gives the police an opportunity to check for outstanding warrants. If you jump the fare and get caught, the least you can do is have the humility to give the police your ID so you can get a proper and just ticket. Police crackdowns on fare jumping has helped to reduce crime and take fugitives into custody. When you see fare jumpers, it adds to a sense that the city is lawless and out of control. The 1970's were a great backdrop to cool movies and TV shows, but I would not want to live in that city and I certainly would not be raising my kids there. It is not the only tactic in the fight against crime, but it is a good one and it should be supported by those of us who prefer safety over crime.