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!

The Bonnie and Clyde Effect

The bullet ridden car of Bonnie and Clyde, 1934

Do bad economies cause crime waves? The infamous Bonnie and Clyde saga in the 1930s happened during the biggest economic downturn in history. It was covered in the national media and it stirred fear of rampant crime. The economy was a mess and more crime comes with it. Gangsters were everywhere. At least that's how the story went.

Whether rampant crime was a reality (it wasn't) didn't seem to matter. It sold lots of papers.

Today we again see local crime stories on the national media during a time of economic challenge. They too stir fear about rampant crime. As before, those stories sell lots of papers (or today's equivalent).

Is crime getting worse with the Great Recession? When they feature horrific local crime stories that convince us we're off to hell in a handbasket, are national news editors getting it right? (Hold the sarcasm. I know that's laughable. Bear with me a moment)

Back in January I wrote about crime rates. Turns out this year's local crime picture has been blurry. Nationally, official crime rates continue their decades long decline. In some cities and regions it is the opposite.

Criminologist James Allan Fox recently told the Huffington Post that economic downturns generally result in some crime increases. Check out the national crime rate store here.

Fox says "there is a connection between an economic downturn and crime: Budget cuts create significant challenges in keeping crime rates low." True, economic downturns tend to correspond with youth crime and street level drug activity. One example is the crack cocaine epidemic during the economic decline of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

On the other hand Criminologist David Kennedy thinks it isn't downturns, but rather boomtimes when crime peaks. "Just look at the 1920's,' he says, "It was a period of booming economic prosperity…and very high crime. The 1950s and 60s were the same. The economy was great, but crime rates rose every single year."

Check out the Huffington Post story here.

Bonnie and Clyde made for readable, and sellable, national news

The Bonnie and Clyde effect blurs what matters most. National, or for that matter citywide, crime rates detract us from getting the job done: the task of building safer communities in our own neighborhoods. Generally speaking, it is crime in our own neighborhoods that matters. It is fear of crimes elsewhere that keep us inside. National news stories on horrific local crimes tell us nothing about our neighbors and less about our local safety.

Who, I wonder, holds national news editors accountable?

Crime in 2010: Up or down?

The Great Depression - some very bad years

On New Year's night, a car crashed into my neighbors yard across the street. When I arrived to check it out (thankfully, no one was hurt) the driver had already fled from his booze-smelling wreck.

What will that look like in official records? A drunk driver? A car crash? A criminal charge for failing to remain? Damage to property? Truth is it might be one, all, or some combination of any of those.

Official stats depend on how busy the police are, the skill and experience of the investigating officer, whether the drunk driver can be found while he's still drunk, and whether the police are even summoned in the first place (in this case, I dialed 9-1-1). Crime incidents turn into stats (or not) based on a whole bunch of things.

None of that helps answer my most important 2010 crime question - Will crime go up or down? Will the Recession linger and jack up misery? Will the 1990's declines resume as potential offenders age out of their crime-prone years?

To some criminologists, visible social conditions and stories from residents tell the tale. Graffiti, homelessness on the street, and other such perceptions are stories that portend the future.

To others crime "data" alone tell the truth. The evidence-based folks slice and dice numbers and serve them up as proof of this or that. As the car crash shows, stats reveal (or not) different things depending on where they are diced and who is slicing.

So 2010. Better or worse? The Washington Post seems to think it will be better.

Last year Baltimore had a 9% increase in murders. Similar disturbing trends exist in a few other cities. Yet crime rates in many US cities continued the Great American Crime Decline that began in the 1990s.

The FBI Rankings of the 2009 six highest crime cities, in order, are: Camden NJ, St. Louis, Oakland, Detroit, Flint, and New Orleans. The lowest crime ranking cities included Madison, Bellingham, WA and Boulder, CO. Should I choose Boulder over St. Louis?

We teach in SafeGrowth that overall city rankings like this predict nothing about life on the street. We learn how to do a Risk Assessment because it is crime patterns within the neighborhood that matter in everyday life - patterns that can make you safe in a high crime city, (New Haven) or unsafe in a relatively low crime city (Vancouver).

How about the country in which we live? Putting stats ahead of patriotism for a moment, the US and Canadian city homicide rates are interesting:

City crime rates rarely tell the story

City homicide rates 2002
per 100,000

Washington, DC: 45.8
Detroit: 42
Baltimore: 38.3
Memphis: 24.7
Chicago: 22.2
Los Angeles: 17.5
Dallas: 15.8
New York: 7.3
Regina: 4.7
Seattle: 4.5
Saskatoon: 4.4
Sudbury: 4
Portland: 3.9
San Diego: 3.8
Edmonton: 3.5
Vancouver: 3.4
Montreal: 3.4
San Jose: 3.1
Winnipeg: 3
Calgary: 2.6
Toronto: 1.8

Am I unsafe living in US cities? The evidence-based folks might say yes (except if I chose San Jose versus Saskatoon or Portland versus Regina). But Vancouver's Downdown East Side or Toronto's Jane/Finch corridor are no doubt far more dangerous than New York's Greenwich Village or Washington's Georgetown.

Which brings us back to the car crash and whether crime will go up or down. I think it depends on where we live, how engaged local residents are in their neighborhood, and what happens in this economy. In some places it'll no doubt go down. In others, it won't.

I think, when it comes to neighborhood safety, the most valuable New Year's resolution we can adopt is neighborhood responsibility and vigilance: Keeping an eye locally and learning how to prevent crime where we live and work.

Civic engagement will tell the story. Our civic engagement.

Have a happy and safe New Year.