More police on the streets means less crime

For the second year in a row, violent crime has risen nationwide. The rate for 2006 indicates a rather modest increase of 1.3 percent. The increase as reported in the FBI Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report is consistent with a 2.3 percent increase in 2005. Those broad figures are not necessarily reason for panic. However, a closer look may be cause for concern because it appears that crime has caught up with suburbia.

Communities traditionally thought of as safe, neighborhoods that were sought out because they were “crime-free,” have endured the greatest increase in violent crime. Between 2004 and 2006 cities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 have realized an 8 percent increase in violent crime. Cities under 25,000 saw a 6.5 percent spike in homicide.

Many of these communities grew as urban dwellers fled to escape the disorder, decay and deviance of the inner-city. Now, local government leaders are scrambling to deal with increasing small town violence. Many of them look to New York City’s unprecedented and dramatic drop in crime during the last two decades. In 1990 there were 2,245 homicides in New York City; by 2006 the number had dropped to 579. Violent crime in New York City has dropped an astonishing 70 percent over the last 15 years.

How did this happen? Much of the credit went to Mayor Rudy Giuliani and police Chief William Bratton. The law enforcement theory they adopted and implemented in New York City was referred to as “broken windows.” The theory grew out of a paper written in 1982 by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. They suggested, “Serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked.”

Bratton, first as chief of the New York City Transit Police and later as the city’s Commissioner of Police, implemented bold initiatives to take on the small stuff in an effort to get control of the big stuff. First, he eliminated subway graffiti and fare jumpers; then he went after vagrants, drunkards, squeegee-men and petty crime.

Dramatic effect

The effect was dramatic, but was that the whole story? Steven Levitt in his book Freakonomics suggests that innovative police tactics like “broken windows” had little impact on crime. The more likely reason for a portion of the New York City miracle is that more police officers were hired in New York City and more resources were made available to deal with disorder. In fact, New York City has 36,400 police officers. NYPD has more officers than the next four largest police departments combined.

Factor in the cost of buying new graffiti free subway cars, keeping those cars graffiti free, monitoring the stations, prosecuting petty crimes and fare jumpers and New York City spent more on crime fighting than most cities have to spend in their entire budget.

The smaller communities that are at the greatest risk of increasing violence are least prepared to deal with the onslaught. The endless resources that made an impact in New York City are beyond the reach of nearly all local governing bodies. Those resources go beyond merely funding more police, although that alone would impact crime. A lack of resources precludes training, equipment and community relations. Small police departments, often less sophisticated than their big city brethren are in dire need of training to deal with big city criminals.

Unfortunately, the resources that were made available in the past to local police have disappeared. The Community Oriented Policing Services Program (COPS) created by the Clinton administration, pumped millions of dollars into local communities to hire more than 100,000 new police officers. Violent crime rates fell throughout the ’90s as resources made their way to local police departments.

Budget cuts

Congress and the Bush administration have chosen to use those resources in areas other than law enforcement. Since 2001 the COPS program has suffered significant budget reductions. Between FY 2007 and proposed FY 2008 COPS funding was reduced by an amazing 78 percent. According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police funding for local law enforcement has shrunk from $3.8 billion in 2002 to $600 million in proposed FY 2008.

More police officers on the street will not prevent all violence. However, New York City is evidence that more police means less crime, making the decision to gut local crime fighting funds baffling. The funding void has had a profound effect on local law enforcement, and in-turn, on the increasing level of violence in small town America.

X Matthew T. Mangino is the former district attorney of Lawrence County and a featured columnist for the Pennsylvania Law Weekly. He can be reached at matthewmangino@aol.com.