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The Crime Rate: How Low Can It Go?


Nilma Rivas was walking with her grandson in East Harlem early one evening when a group of men in a car began shooting on the sidewalk. A stray bullet hit her in the leg, and she bled to death. She was 52 years old.

“People who knew what to do ran,” Jose Rivera, a resident who witnessed the shooting, told the New York Times. “Those who didn’t know what to do stood there.”

That was in November, 1993, a time when the newspaper could refer to random shootings as "numbingly common."

A dozen years later, Javier Llano, walking in that same neighborhood, is worried about crime too. But the crimes that engage Llano, the district manager of the local community board, are pickpocketing and the theft of items left in the cafeteria at Mount Sinai hospital.

In the decade after Rivas's killing, crime in East Harlem dropped 60 percent. The number of murders in the police precinct where Rivas died dropped from 37 a year to eight.

The story is much the same all over New York City, which has experienced a dramatic drop in crime for 15 years in a row now. In 1990, 2,245 were murdered; in 2004, there were 566 murders citywide. In 1990, 147,123 cars were stolen; in 2004, auto thefts in the city totaled 21,848. The Federal Bureau of Investigation now considers New York the country’s safest big city.

How did this happen? Why did it happen? Mayor Michael Bloomberg credits the policies of his administration and those of his predecessor, and is making the drop in crime a centerpiece of his campaign for re-election. But others offer different explanations. And some experts say that the drop in crime remains a mystery.

Most New Yorkers, though, are probably less interested in why crime has been dropping than in whether it will continue to do so. Some fear an inevitable reversal of the trend, and point to a recent increase in crime in several neighborhoods. (See related story in the Community Gazettes for district 3, Against the Tide, Crime Continues Rising in Chelsea)

With fewer resources allocated to go after crime, some say that the administration is putting itself in a tricky situation. If no one is sure why the crime rate has continued to decrease, how can they know that it won't start to increase? And if Bloomberg and his police commissioner are taking credit for keeping the crime rate down, how can they avoid the blame if it starts to go back up?

BLOOMBERG'S POLICIES

When he succeeded Rudolph Giuliani as mayor in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg vowed he would keep crime down while at the same time improving community relations. In making these promises, he was responding to the dual legacy of Rudolph Giuliani.

Many New Yorkers identified the decline in crime with Giuliani’s tough tactics. Giuliani saw lowering crime rates as his major goal in office, and adopted a relentless policing style to do so, combating minor, so-called quality of life offenses.

On the face of it, Bloomberg’s basic policing philosophy is a continuation of Giuliani’s. Both administrations have focused on cracking down on minor crimes. Bloomberg immediately initiated Operation Clean Sweep upon coming into office to cut down on quality of life offenses. In its first two years, the operation totaled 20,000 arrests and 209 summonses.

Under Bloomberg, courts are not inclined to offer Desk Appearance Tickets – tickets for small crimes intended to move people through the system quickly – meaning that offenders are more likely to spend the night in jail.

The police department is also looking at ways to improve analysis of crime data, setting the stage for targeted operations that resemble those that Giuliani adopted citywide.

“They’re constantly working on being smarter, and putting people where the problems are, and having the data and the information to do it quicker,” said Eli Silverman, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Operation Impact, for example, is the administration’s major such effort. It uses computer-generated statistics to come up with troubled “Impact Zones”, which it then floods with rookie police officers. The administration notes that crime in these areas dropped 26 percent in 2004. It has moved its focus to a new set of areas for 2005.

Limits to Success?

In some cases, though, the idea of saturation seems to be pushed near its limit. While crime declined across the board last year, major felonies were up 2.1 percent on the subway, despite a nearly 40 percent increase in the number of arrests.

 

Over-reliance on the numbers has also been said to give the department tunnel vision. William Bratton, the police commissioner who established the major policing policies of the Giuliani administration, wrote that reliance on computer-generated statistics tends to reduce focus on things that cannot be measured easily (in pdf format).

The relentless pursuit of lower crime rates through increased police vigilance is also having an effect on the police officers themselves. During the Giuliani years, the pressure to lower crime was seen as reason for overly aggressive tactics; in recent years precincts having trouble bringing down crime through policing have reverted to creative manipulation of the statistics (and, in some cases, outright fabrication.)

Rank-and-file police officers are also without a contract. This, combined with pressure to continuously outperform themselves, has led to an all-time low in morale, according to police union president Patrick Lynch.

Improving on Community Relations?

The policing strategies that Bloomberg has inherited alienated a large swath of the city’s population during the Giuliani administration, particularly the young black and Hispanic men who were most likely to be the targets of crackdowns. They were also linked to high profile police killings and other acts of brutality like the killing of Amadou Diallo and the torture of Abner Louimathat marred the Giuliani administration.

 

At first glance, such tension has seemed absent from the Bloomberg years.

 

In truth, though, the number of complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board during the Bloomberg years has actually been higher than it was under Giuliani. It continues to rise. In the first six months of 2004 the number of complaints grew about 15 percent as compared to 2003, numbers that the police department dismisses as indicative of increased ease in filing complaints through systems like 311. Young black men are still more likely to file complaints than any other group.

Nor have the last three years been free of innocent victims: a police officer shot and killed Timothy Stansbury while he was walking across the roof of his grandmother’s housing development; Alberta Spruill was killed in her apartment building in Harlem during a faulty raid; a police officer shot and killed African immigrant Ousmane Zongo in a raid that some have criticized as reminiscent of the troubling excesses of the Giuliani years.

What has changed is that these events have failed to develop into widespread discontent. To many, this serves as a testament to the political skills of Bloomberg and Kelly. Their prowess in public relations, some say, has diverted attention away from what really amounts to more of the same.

“Part of the thing that galvanized people was Giuliani with this uncaring attitude, and Bloomberg has not done that,” said Angelo Falcon, president of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy. “It’s still a serious problem in our communities. What has changed on the ground is that people aren’t paying attention in the same way.”

Others give the current administration more credit, saying that Kelly has cut back on the more aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics that were producing much tension while also reaching out to communities.

“What [Kelly] is saying is that police commanders should stay in touch with their communities, find out what the problems are, attend meetings,” said Edward Mamet, a retired police captain who now works as a police consultant. “It doesn’t have to be in a formal way. It’s a culture that has to be established.”

In East Harlem, says Javier Llano of Community Board 11, police officers not only meet with him, but also with local businesses and community organizations in a way that never happened under Giuliani. These meetings have inspired Llano, he says, to think of new ways to improve the burgeoning relationship between the police and the community.

On the other hand, developing closer relationships with local police officers has had at least one drawback. Officers have recently been coming to Llano with troubling news. Don’t be surprised if the crime rate starts going up, one warned him, because we can’t possibly make it go any lower.

WHY THE DROP IN CRIME?

To accept or reject this argument -- that the crime rate cannot possibly go any lower -- it helps to understand the debate over the causes for the unprecedented decline in crime.

Those trying to explain the drop in crime generally gather into two opposing camps.

On one side are those who believe that poverty, joblessness, and other social and economic factors drive crime rates. According to this view, the nationwide drop in crime during the 1990s was due mainly to the end of the crack cocaine epidemic and the strong economy. New York’s specific success was also credited to a rise in immigrants – who commit fewer crimes – and a drop in the number of young men – who commit more.

The other side of the debate argues that policing was what mattered most, and that New York City’s experience proves that. By adopting the broken windows theory and pioneering Compstat, the New York Police Department had developed new, more effective ways to combat crime.

The New York Police Department underwent major changes in the 1990s that continue to the present day. After increasing significantly in size, it embraced a new philosophy under Giuliani. The broken windows theory holds that unpunished minor offenses led to an atmosphere of disorder that would lead to more major crimes.

The department’s goal became to eliminate that atmosphere. To do so, it employed Compstat, a computer database that created detailed information about crime on a precinct-by-precinct basis. This was neither a technological innovation nor a a completely new idea; Compstat used off-the-shelf software to do something that police had long done by hand. But it allowed the department to do it faster, and it made precincts responsible for their own performances. In monthly meetings, traditional barriers to communication were eliminated.

“We had developed a method to reduce crime and disorder that would work in any city in America – indeed, in any city in the world,” wrote Police Commissioner William Bratton, who implemented Compstat and the broken windows theory in New York.

The ideas spread across the country, but not every city in America adopted them, and skeptics point out that many of these cities saw drops in crime as well. In the 1990s, cities like Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego saw crime drop significantly.

“Long derided by conservatives for its alternative crime policies, San Francisco registered reductions in crime that exceed or equal comparable cities and jurisdictions – including New York,” wrote the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in a 2002 report (in pdf format).

Recent years have seen some of these successes reversed. At the same time, a fluctuating economy did nothing to reverse the crime rate. Some proponents of the arguments that social and economic drive crime rates were no longer convinced that these arguments gave the full picture.

Andrew Karmen, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Science and the author of New York Murder Mystery, a book about the nationwide decline in crime during the 1990s, points to continuing social factors – more high school students going to college, the continued boom in immigration – while also saying that the police department has been a significant factor.

But the failure of either major theory to explain fully the drop in crime leads Karmen to the conclusion that what is happening in New York is in need of examination outside of the usual argument between the two camps. He has been calling for a non-political commission to study the phenomenon so that policymakers will not be caught unaware when the trend reverses.

“I want to present the whole thing as a mystery and I want to claim that no one knows for sure why crime has dropped so sharply in New York,” he said, which makes it impossible to know when the trend will stop.

HOW LOW CAN THE CRIME RATE GO?

At various times throughout the last 15 years, experts have said that crime had reached its lowest possible level.

“Since you can never eliminate crime, you have to look at what is the satisfactory level of crime that we can tolerate,” said Mamet, the police consultant. Some think that 566 murders is close to the best that New York can hope for.

Whether a certain number of crimes constitute a high or low crime rate is, of course, relative. In the 1950s, 300 or 400 murders were accepted as the average; by 1996, the 1,000-murder mark was considered the “magic number” to beat.

"If at midnight of December 31 the homicide rate is below 1,000, you can bet the corks will be popping at City Hall.” Newsday writer Dennis Duggan predicted several weeks before the end of 1996.

There would hardly be celebration at the mayor’s office if there are anywhere near 1,000 murders this year, just as many European cities would be shocked to suffer from the "low crime rate" that New York enjoys today. The murder rate in New York City, for example, is calculated to be 6.9 per 100,000 people. By contrast, the murder rate in London is 2.4 per 100,000. And whatever the rate, the absolute number of murders in New York City last year was higher than any other city in the United States. Put it all together, and there were as many Americans killed in New York City between 1962 and 2002 as died in the Vietnam War. That doesn't sound very low.

Related Links
New York Police Department
Vera Institute of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Overview of Homicide Trends in the US
Does Policing Matter? An Analysis of the New York City's Police Reforms (by the Manhattan Institute)
Shattering Broken Windows: An Analysis of San Francisco's Alternative Crime Policies (by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice)
Reconsidering the 'Broken Windows' Theory (an audio file by National Public Radio)
 

 

The Case of The Youthful Offender And The Bawdy House Law


 

What happens when two laws that are both intended to protect people come into conflict with one another? Two such laws -- one, protecting young people who have made a mistake; the other, protecting tenants of public housing –- collided in the Bronx.

Under New York State law, eligible persons under 19 who are found culpable of criminal conduct, may, in the discretion of the court, be adjudicated “youthful offenders” or Y.O.'s. Their records are sealed to spare young adults who have violated the criminal laws from the stigma and detrimental consequences of a criminal conviction.

Criminal convictions resulting from drug activity on residential properties by people living there, must be reported to the landlords, who must then commence eviction proceedings in Housing Court, under the so-called Bawdy House Law, part of New York's Real Property Actions and Proceedings Laws.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Laura Safer Espinoza, the judge in charge of the Bronx Drug Court has criticized the office of D.A. Robert Johnson, for what she described as the "not uncommon" practice of violating the confidentiality of sealed records by supplying them to landlords.

Manauri R., as the youth was identified, had entered a guilty plea, establishing that the drug violation was at the location where he lived. Despite the sealing of the court records of Manauri R., a youthful offender, prosecutors had, without a court order permitting the unsealing, sent them to the landlord of the apartment in which he was living, with notice that due to a drug case, the landlord was obligated to evict the tenant. The landlord did, in fact, commence eviction proceedings, naming both Manauri R. who lived in the apartment, and the actual tenant, Ms. Qualquirys Tavarez. She had not been convicted or even accused of any drug related activity, but the issue came to light in Housing Court when Tavarez's Legal Services attorney learned the reason for the eviction proceeding against her.

The D.A. argued that it was in the interests of justice to evict persons who use or allow the use of residential or retail premises as narcotics warehouses and factories. Such premises should be inhabited by law-abiding persons. The judge did not agree with the prosecution that every allegation of drug possession in a residential apartment, while prohibited by the penal law, rises to the level of an illegal trade or manufacture or other illegal business, prohibited by the Bawdy House law. It must appear that the premises have been used for the unlawful purposes not in an isolated act, but with some measure of continuity.

While the D.A.'s office acknowledged that releasing sealed records without a court order is unlawful, the prosecution lawyers made arguments rejected by Justice Espinoza that either the records were not sealed or were part of an investigation or were transmitted to the landlord inadvertently. The prosecutors argued that they are not prohibited from providing the landlord with copies of documents from their files, analysis and property clerk vouchers, investigatory or business records. But in her decision, the judge pointed out that, "[s]ealing also includes evidence developed during the investigation that preceded the action, if related to the arrest for its prosecution or to the prosecution itself."

It is unavailing, the judge wrote, "in that disclosure of the records did not contravene the purpose or spirit of the Youthful Offender statute. Rather, [the prosecutors] are asserting that publishing the records does not stigmatize the defendant because the focus is not on the juvenile [but rather] on the adult tenant of record and the misuse and illegal use of the tenant's apartment."

"The People published the confidential records to evict him (Manauri R. the youth) as well as Ms. Tavarez.," who was not accused of drug activity. Still, even after Manauri R. left the apartment, the eviction proceeding continued.

"Violation of sealing statutes has been strongly condemned," said Justice Espinoza. "Use of confidential information regarding a youthful offender adjudication, if improperly obtained, is not permitted. [S]ince disclosure is the exception rather than the rule, one seeking disclosure first must demonstrate a compelling and particularized need for access. However, just any demonstration will not suffice. For it and the countervailing policy ground it reflects must be strong enough to overcome the presumption of confidentiality. In short, without the initial showing of a compelling and particularized need, the question of discretion need not be reached, for then there simply would be no policies to balance."

"The People have failed to offer a 'compelling and particularized showing as to how the sealed records in the instant case are necessary and essential to protecting the public from the evils which the Bawdy House Laws address,'" Justice Espinoza concluded.

Since the eviction proceeding was founded on the improperly released youthful offender record, there was no legal basis for it and it was discontinued.

Emily Jane Goodman is a New York State Supreme Court Justice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home Invasion Robberies


The perfect crime may be the one that goes unreported. In January, police arrested leaders of a Harlem gang that, policesay, terrorized drug dealers with a series of over 100 home-invasion robberies. The leaders were also allegedly involved in three murders.

The arrest served to spotlight home-invasion robberies, which, according to federal crime statistics, have been increasing nationwide.

Home invasion robberies, which involve either using force or a ruse to enter someone’s home, are not uncommon in the drug trade, in part because the robbers can be confident that the victims will be reluctant to call the police. In December, 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local police arrested drug dealers who, according to DEA"obtained a large amount of their cocaine and heroin by committing violent home invasion robberies of other drug dealers, often in large apartment buildings, endangering the public." And police notedthat the Bronx gang would sometimes target the wrong apartment, robbing people who had nothing to do with the drug trade. The elderly are also frequent targets of such crimes.

Overall, home invasion and push-in robberies (where entrance is gained by following someone to their door or through a ruse) can be traumatizing and can easily escalate into violence.

The New York Police Department declined to release statistics on these types of robberies. However, nationwide statistics released by the FBI show that, while robberies have been decreasing overall, robberies occurring at a residence increased every year from 1999 through 2003, the most recent year statistics are available.

By 2003, residence robberies had increased by 18 percent from 1999. (In contrast, the total number of robberies rose by 1 percent over the same time period.) Most robberies in the United States still happen on the street, but about 14 percent of all robberies took place at a residence in 2003. In the northeast, that number drops to about 9 percent.

New York police, in the past, have held special seminars in neighborhoods where push-in robberies are a problem, warning residents not to fall for the ruses sometimes used by robbers. For example, a robber might knock on the door and claim to be a building inspector or a deliveryperson.

The elderly can be particularly vulnerable to these ruses, as well as to being followed into their homes by a stranger. In 2001, then-Assemblymember Jeffery Klein noticed a sharp spike in push-in robberies in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx, about 20 robberies in a two-month span accounting for a surge of about 60 percent. Most targeted the elderly, Klein recalled. Now a state senator, Klein said police found that many apartment doors did not have functioning peepholes and that that lead to many of the crimes. With support from a state grant, police and community organizations, and a local company, about 750 peepholes were installed, leading to a sharp reduction in push-in robberies, Klein said.

Robbers sometimes claim to be police in order to get people to open their doors, perhaps especially troubling to the actual police. But such an impersonation, while involving a separate criminal charge, does not typically lead to a stiffer sentence upon conviction, according to James Evangelou, chief of the Career Criminal Major Crime Bureau for the Queens County district attorney’s office. Neither does the law do much to distinguish between home invasions and street robberies, said Evangelou.

Several years ago, accordin g to the New York Times, some Manhattan residents worried that a strong police presence was keeping criminals off the streets but leading to an increase in push-in robberies. With Operation Impact, the a police effort to increase patrols in high-crime neighborhoods, dramatically increasing the police presence in some neighborhoods, the same concern might arise today. Police though point to statistics that show overall robberies have declined by about 26 percent in neighborhoods where Operation Impact has been in effect.

Terry Rodie, district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 14, which includes Flatbush and Midwood, expressed doubt about whether such a link between police and push-in robberies could exist in her neighborhood. But, she added, "that doesn't mean it couldn't be true. The same theory could be said for a snowstorm."“I think that’s more some kind of a [folk] tale…but I don’t mean to say it could not be true,” said Rodie. “The same theory could be said for a big snowstorm.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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