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From your article: > When Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City in 1993, he campaigned on a platform of bringing down crime and making the city safe aga

From your article: > When Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor of New York City in 1993, he campaigned on a platform of bringing down crime and making the city safe again. > Since 1960, rape rates had nearly quadrupled, murder had quintupled, and robbery had grown fourteenfold. > Giuliani won the election, and he made good on his crime-fighting promises [...] > The results were dramatic. In 1996, the New York Times reported that crime had plunged for the third straight year, the sharpest drop since the end of Prohibition. Since 1993, rape rates had dropped 17 percent, assault 27 percent, robbery 42 percent, and murder an astonishing 49 percent. I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but nobody disputes that Giuliani's policies on crime were extremely effective. Maybe they had some undesirable side-effects for the minority communities that were most affected by the policies. That should definitely be addressed. But those communities became safer and more affluent in the meantime.

jtbayly 5y ago
Also from the same article: > In city after city, violent crime peaked in the early ’90s and then began a steady and spectacular decline. Washington, DC, didn’t have either Giuliani or Bratton, but its violent crime rate has dropped 58 percent since its peak. Dallas’ has fallen 70 percent. Newark: 74 percent. Los Angeles: 78 percent. > > There must be more going on here than just a change in policing tactics in one city. But what? The point is that correlation is not causation. Assuming that abortion led to a decrease in crime is an assumption. So is assuming that removing lead from the environment led to a decrease in crime. So is assuming that one politician’s methods led to a decrease in crime. In fact, that is probably the least likely, given the fact that it happened everywhere.
DFHippie 5y ago
The same decrease in crime that occurred under Giuliani occurred in other cities around the country and the world which had very different policing policies. See, for example, https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/089533004773563485 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/089533004773563485 Or, of course, Kevin Drum's article. TLDR: People do dispute that Giuliani's policies on crime were extremely effective.
outworlder 5y ago
> but nobody disputes that Giuliani's policies on crime were extremely effective. In fact, they were so effective that they reduced the crime rates in the entire country! There's plenty of people disputing the efficacy of NY's policies. https://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/what-reduced-crime-new-york-city https://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/what-reduced-crime-new-yor...
Spooky23 5y ago
Many people dispute it. Giuliani made a lot of political hay out of it for sure, and compstat introduced some accountability to the notorious NYPD bureaucracy. IMO it was a combo of getting rid of the dead wood running the previous administration and demographic changes. (Ie the crack wars were “won” by dominant gangs and the lead gas kids were dead or in jail.) I’d suggest reading about Jack Maple, who was a transit cop in the then separate NY Transit Police. (This was the sea change as his rise to prominence happened due to housecleaning.) He pioneered the methods that became compstat, which started as a revolution and ultimately turned into a yet another bullshit metrics program.
kortilla 5y ago
RTFA, it’s entire point is that the decline was present in cities without Giuliani as well. The correlation was with reduction in lead, not dim-witted politicians on the left nor the right.

jtbayly 5y ago

Also from the same article: > In city after city, violent crime peaked in the early ’90s and then began a steady and spectacular decline. Washington, DC, didn’t have either Giuliani or Bratton, but its violent crime rate has dropped 58 percent since its peak. Dallas’ has fallen 70 percent. Newark: 74 percent. Los Angeles: 78 percent. > > There must be more going on here than just a change in policing tactics in one city. But what? The point is that correlation is not causation. Assuming that abortion led to a decrease in crime is an assumption. So is assuming that removing lead from the environment led to a decrease in crime. So is assuming that one politician’s methods led to a decrease in crime. In fact, that is probably the least likely, given the fact that it happened everywhere.

DFHippie 5y ago

The same decrease in crime that occurred under Giuliani occurred in other cities around the country and the world which had very different policing policies. See, for example, https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/089533004773563485 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/089533004773563485 Or, of course, Kevin Drum's article. TLDR: People do dispute that Giuliani's policies on crime were extremely effective.

outworlder 5y ago

> but nobody disputes that Giuliani's policies on crime were extremely effective. In fact, they were so effective that they reduced the crime rates in the entire country! There's plenty of people disputing the efficacy of NY's policies. https://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/what-reduced-crime-new-york-city https://www.nber.org/digest/jan03/what-reduced-crime-new-yor...

Spooky23 5y ago

Many people dispute it. Giuliani made a lot of political hay out of it for sure, and compstat introduced some accountability to the notorious NYPD bureaucracy. IMO it was a combo of getting rid of the dead wood running the previous administration and demographic changes. (Ie the crack wars were “won” by dominant gangs and the lead gas kids were dead or in jail.) I’d suggest reading about Jack Maple, who was a transit cop in the then separate NY Transit Police. (This was the sea change as his rise to prominence happened due to housecleaning.) He pioneered the methods that became compstat, which started as a revolution and ultimately turned into a yet another bullshit metrics program.

kortilla 5y ago

RTFA, it’s entire point is that the decline was present in cities without Giuliani as well. The correlation was with reduction in lead, not dim-witted politicians on the left nor the right.