A thousand small sanities

 NYPD's hotspot tactics & Compstat are controversial - but effective
[Photo: Ianqui Doodle/Flickr]

Readers of SafeGrowth know certain high crime properties are incubators for gangs and violence. That isn't destiny, it's reality. If SafeGrowth (and approaches like it) prove anything, it proves residents are not doomed to a life of mayhem. Environment can be changed and streets transformed.  

It also proves we can do it with coherent planning, mobilized neighborhoods and intelligent anticrime strategies like hotspot policing.

Case in point: crime declines in New York.

I recently read Frank Zimring in the New York Times:  "The 40% drop in crime that occurred across the U.S. from 1991 to 2000 largely remains an unsolved mystery. Even more puzzling then is the crime rate drop in New York City, which lasted twice long and was twice as large. This 80% drop in crime over nineteen years represents the largest crime decline on record."

Zimring studies New York's crime declines - A book worth reading.

A mystery?

I'm not big on mysteries that aren't. It's like watching a Hollywood flick and expecting some magical, non-formulaic finale. Not going to happen!

That 40% drop nation-wide followed a decades-long demographic metamorphosis that swept North America more than anywhere else since WW2. Since the 1990s crime-prone cohorts aged out of crime in record numbers. Those crime declines continue today.                                                          
Then New York built on that perfect demographic storm as NYPD added crime suppression tactics like proactive street stops and controversial (but clearly effective) quality-of-life enforcement.               
Intensive street stops increased the risk of getting caught with an illegal gun. That led to a 39% drop in gun toting criminals from 1993-1995. Is it really a mystery that kind of informal gun control cut violence?

FEWER PRISONERS?

It's what Greg Bergman calls A Thousand Small Sanities (another excellent read).

During the peak crime declines fewer arrestees went to prison. Why? Bergman describes the vast network of incarceration alternatives evolved in New York - drug courts, mental health courts and community courts providing meaningful community alternatives like drug treatment and restorative justice.

Says Bergman "there needs to be a continuum of non-incarcerative interventions for offenders with the most intensive options reserved for populations that are both high risk and high-need."

Hotspot policing, neighborhood justice courts, and targeted suppression. Anchor that with permanent SafeGrowth planning and neighborhood capacity building and voila -  a finale that makes sense.

Time for a change in policing?

This week The Wire came to life. I much prefer blogging successes vs wrongdoing. Every now and then though something comes along. It happened Wednesday, an ugly echo of the Serpico affair 40 years ago.

If you're not into policing, Serpico was the NYPD detective who retired after blowing the whistle on corruption in the 1960s and 1970s. His revelations led to a government inquiry, the Knapp Commission, and the Oscar nominated film Serpico starring Al Pacino.

This Wednesday Village Voice published NYPD Crime Stats Manipulation Widespread. Written by two criminologists, it summarized their scientific research, internal reviews and news accounts of a whistle blower. It confirms that NYPD is cooking their crime books, engaging in questionable arrests and reclassifying crime reports all in the name of proving that CompStat cuts crime. The irony is CompStat was intended to enhance accountability and improve police leadership, not the reverse.

Perhaps the most shameful part of this sordid tale (one that decent and hardworking NYPD street cops themselves probably cannot believe) is the story of officer Adrian Schoolcraft. Like Serpico, Schoolcraft uncovered police wrongdoing, this time by secretly taping conversations of his bosses.

The NYPD precinct where Officer Schoolcraft's secret tapes were recorded 

Lamplighters like Serpico and Schoolcraft are often ostracized (in Serpico's case he was shot by druggies when his backup didn't show; in Schoolcraft's case he was dragged in front of a psychiatrist to prove he's insane). Schoolcraft ended up filing a federal lawsuit against NYPD.

The study confirmed Schoolcraft's allegations. In later reports the criminologists (one a former NYPD Captain) claim that NYPD has become a place of "relentless pressure, questionable activities, unethical manipulation of statistics. We've lost the understanding that policing is not just about crime numbers, it's about service."

Service indeed! That demand should be made of everyone in charge of public safety.

All which leads me to wonder: How widespread is this fuzzy math? Are there better models for accountability and measuring success and failure? Perhaps it's time to rethink an entirely new model of police services?

Shazam! New York's crime solution?

For a decade NYPD has claimed credit for lower crime

This week America celebrates Thanksgiving. Among the multitude of things for which to be thankful is lower crime rates than in the 1970s and 1980s. An article in the New York Times says this year the NYPD offer thanks for yet another dip in the annual crime rate. Wonderful. Except for one thing. Crime didn't dip. At least not violent crime.

According to the NYPD 2010 crime stats, murder is up 16% since last year, rapes up 14% and robberies up 5%. Only when combining the violent crime numbers with much more numerous property crime numbers like burglary and larceny, does the crime rate "dip".

Is Thanksgiving the moment when the decade long crime decline finally stalls? It this the turning point for a city once celebrated as poster-child for effective policing? Is this when the Great Recession finally triggers a tidal crime shift from ebb to flow?

The good news? Perspective. Even a 16% increase this year is a light-year away from prior decades. In 1990 New York there were 2,263 murders. In 2009 there were 471. All this in spite of a population increase.

More good news - research from Vera Institute's Michael Jacobson suggests "effective policing in New York has made some difference - even though the statistical effects, if they are there at all, are small." At least some policing strategies have some impact, though it's unclear to what extent NYPD's version of those strategies deserve applause.

The bad news? Cooked books.

COOKED BOOKS

One (admittedly narrow) research survey released last month says retired senior officers are now raising questions on the veracity of NYPD crime stats. That's not new. I remember this kind of thing in some Canadian police organizations 20 years ago. Those familiar with police research have for years read the literature about these kinds of shenanigans - literature politicians tend to ignore.

The most notorious tactic is the Great Reclassification Scam: Crime reports in one category get reclassified into a lower category. Last month's study described how theft reports with expensive stolen items were checked against web sites such as e-Bay to find similar items with lower prices. Stolen items in the reports were repriced with lower values in order to reclassify them from felony grand larcenies (thefts over $1000) down to misdemeanors.

Shazam! Lower felony rates!

Granted, some of the retired senior officers surveyed may have had an axe to grind. Some also offered the slippery ethical reasoning that reclassification scams resulted from pressure to keep improving their crime stats each year.

Interestingly, most officers surveyed said New York was now a safer place and the Compstat strategy, the statistics and management system producing those stats, was partly responsible. As well, other research studies contradict the scam allegations and conclude NYPD stats are generally accurate.

Who to believe? Crime up or down?

Perhaps the more important question is, What did police do differently under Compstat to tackle crime?

Next blog: Compstat!