Policing and the Crack Epidemic
Dear George,
It's too bad that life's daily routine has to interrupt our correspondence.
I am sure that by the time we get the rhythm our week will have ended! While I
have read some of your work and even used it in classes, clearly I should have
got to know you before this week.
One of the most disturbing trends in public policy has been the distortion
of social-science research to support an ideological agenda. As you point out,
this abuse has been practiced on the left and the right. Criminal-justice
policy and urban policy have been two big targets of the ideological wars in
American politics. I don't know if you saw the article in Dissent in
which Michael Tomasky maintained that "liberals" disagreed with your "broken
windows" theory and that the policies of liberal mayors caused the increase in
crime in America's cities between 1960 and 1990. I had a piece in the same
issue that pointed out that your theory was not ideologically based. You
mentioned that you were asked to help reduce subway crime in New York during
the 1980s. While the MTA runs the subways in New York, the mayor, Ed Koch a
progressive Democract, was directly involved in funding and implementing your
strategy. Also, it was Mayor David Dinkins who found the money to hire 3,000
more police officers in New York under his "Safe Streets Safe Cities" program.
In fact, most people who give Giuliani all the credit for New York's declining
crime rate don't know that crime started to drop during the last two years of
the Dinkins administration. Moreover, as you know, crime has been declining in
every major city in the country. While Giuliani's policies may have provided
"value added" for New York, its hard to argue causation for local policies when
there is a national trend at work.
This actually brings me to an article on the front page of Sunday's
(September 19) New York Times . The article is about crack use in poor
communities in the inner city. A recent study by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta is cited by the Times . The study found
that diminished gang warfare related to crack has been the major reason for the
sharp drop in violent crime nationwide. At the same time, the annual survey of
drug use by the National Institute for Justice shows a change in attitude by
the young. They are simply not using crack, even when they are using other
drugs. I cite all this evidence because I can't help but take social science
seriously. The conclusion of the article is that the decline in urban crime is
primarily due to the decline in crack use and not changes in policing. It
always struck me as strange that in the period when crime was increasing in
cities, politicians blamed the problem on the pathologies in the inner-city
communities. However, once crime declined it was the police who got all the
credit. No one bothered to check, until now, whether something might have
changed in these communities. I know this is your terrain. What do you
think?
Warmest regards,
Ester
