Find The Mayor!

The NY Times reports on the continuing drop in homicides in New York City.  Although some say the essence of comedy is the unexpected, we still find this omission by the Times to be funny:

The homicide figure continues a remarkable slide since 1990, when New York recorded its greatest number of killings in a single year, 2,245, and when untold scores of the victims were killed in violence between strangers.

Homicides began falling in the early 1990s, when Raymond W. Kelly first served as police commissioner, and plummeted further under subsequent commissioners. Mr. Kelly returned to serve under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002, the first year there were fewer than 600 homicides. There were 587 that year, down from 649 in the previous year.

Geez, I'm straining to remember who was Mayor when the murder rate plunged.  They mention Blomberg, but I'm sure someone preceded him...

Joe Conason, writing at Salon, provides lib-friendly reassurance that yes, although crime dropped under Giuliani he was not responsible.  That oeuvre makes a nice companion piece to the literature assuring us that Gorbachev, not Reagan, was responsible for ending the Cold War.

Meanwhile, back in reality, let's see how homicides "began falling in the early 1990s, when Raymond W. Kelly first served as police commissioner, and plummeted further under subsequent commissioners":

1990  2,245
1991  2,154   down 91
1992  1,995   down 159
1993  1,946   down 49
1994  1,561   down 385 in Mayor Whatzizname's first term; Bratton was Commissioner
1995  1,177   down 384
1996    983   down 194

I hope this helps, but I bet they already knew this at the Times.

WATCHING THE DETECTIVES:

Josh Marshall comments on the Times story:

As an aside, I think this gives more credence to a suspicion I've had since the late '90s: that the current low murder rates in this country -- particularly in New York City -- probably make the whole concept of the TV police procedural unrealistic.   Can the two detectives at Law & Order really have one murder case to solve once a week?  And all three series?  Or what about the old NYPD Blue?  The structure of the show was based on murders right and left for just the single precinct.

And demonstrating that great minds run in the same channel, here is Doc Drezner:

I was looking forward to the day when the combined number of homicides on Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent exceeded the actual number of homicides in the five boroughs. 

Hmmm.... come to think of it, most of these shows are set in Manhattan. I wonder if we hae reached the point when the annual number of homicides in that borough are less than the number of homicides that would be portrayed on television. Not just the L&O franchise, but also CSI:  NY and the half-dozen other crime shows I'n sure are set in the city.

Readers, go and check this out!

Comments

[hit and run]

You'll find the Mayor in a diner, apparently.

Giuliani seeks votes one plate at a time
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
Fri Nov 23, 2:57 AM ET

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - Heavy on the calories, light on the substance and garnished with a touch of rhetoric — that's how Rudy Giuliani prefers to campaign when he's on the road.

Mostly shunning the policy-laden town hall settings favored by many of his rivals, the former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate has opted instead to drop by popular eateries. He shakes some hands, compliments the chef, maybe makes a few remarks and then gets down to business, sampling the local fare with true gusto.

From a lobster shack on the coast of New Hampshire to a South Philadelphia cheesesteak stand to a barbecue joint in Oklahoma City, no culinary landmark is too obscure for the Giuliani campaign schedule.

But it's the all-American diner that is Giuliani's preferred campaign venue.

Hmmmm..."Heavy on the calories". Should this have been in the last thread?

Good question!

[kim]

Smart move. It's almost possible to be civil about politics while stuffing your face. Too busy to growl.
=============

[davod]

I hope someone has not changed the way they measure homicides.

[Jane]

Hey Hit,

You got an Instalaunch. Who knew?

[hit and run]

Thanks for pointing that out Jane. I might not have seen that til Monday...and by then it may have been buried so far down I would have missed it.

(good to see Tom get his for his "Perv" comment, too)

[Cecil Turner]

Ray Kelly's an interesting guy (as is his son . . . I've got stories), and the initial drop in crime meshes well with his tenure, as the latter execution does with Giuliani's. Less well-known is that he's very well connected with the Dems, particularly with the Clintons. If the nominees are Hillary!/Rudy, I'd expect an endorsement (possibly with some hokey "even the NY commissioner prefers Hillary" nonsense).

[kim]

Kelly has held every single rank in the NYPD. His might be an intriguing choice.
==================================

[Jane]

I wanna hear the stories!

[maryrose]

Did JMAx win? I'm a little bit behind because of Thanksgiving. Hope everyone had a great time yesTerday celebating and giving thanks!

[jimmyk]

The NY Times on the drop in violence in Iraq: "The number of American and Iraqi deaths in Iraq began to plummet during Nancy Pelosi's term as Speaker of the House..."

[Cecil Turner]

I wanna hear the stories!

Okay, here's a fairly innocuous one (full disclosure: Greg--call sign "Shifty"--disputes it, and I got it second-hand). Our Italian exchange pilot, on being informed he must share a shipboard state room with Kelly for six months:

"I can no leeve with Sheefty. Sheefty is a peeg."

[Jane]

Well that's not a bad one - and he does seem to be a strange duck - but by far the best of the weekend Fox crew.

[TM]

I still can't catch up - what was the Hit and Run Insta-link?

[Forbes]

The Times is remarkably clueless regarding the person responsible for implementing the policies that resulted in a reduction in overall crime--and not just murder.

Just one example will serve the purpose, here. Giuliani revoked the 1960's era (Knapp Commission on police corruption) policy that prevented uniformed officers from making drug arrests. The result was that dealers routinely sold drugs in plain view of officers because the dealers knew the uniformed officer could not make an arrest--and an undercover officer wasn't likely to show up to make an arrest, as the undercover officer was not a witness to the crime, and the dealer would be long gone by the time of arriving on the crime scene.

And then there was the Dinkins administration (Giuliani's predecessor) that had the same prevention philosophy as John Kerry had towards terrorism--treat it as an acceptable nuisance. Needless to say, the Times couldn't ever find a reason to criticize Mayor Dinkins.

As well, the Times runs--on a near annual basis--an article by Fox Butterfield (yes, that's the reporter's name) that laments how it's impossible to understand a rising incarceration rate when crime is declining.

Butterfield, apparently, believes a declining crime rate is indicative of a placid and gentile populace that commits fewer crimes--and therefore, there are fewer criminals that need to be locked up. Contrarily, most recent experience demonstrates when more criminals are locked up, they are not free to commit crimes, and therefore the crime rate declines as more criminals are kept off the street.

And isn't Josh Marshall a little late to the idea of the murder/detective drama as unrealistic? There was at least one murder per week in tiny Cabot Cove, Maine, starting in 1984 (Murder, She Wrote). And I don't think there was a crack cocaine problem in Maine.

[hit and run]

It was here

(I'm NOT Charles Krauthammer, of course, see the "Plus" comment...)

The link is to here

And my attempt at modesty here on JOM, here

[Forbes]

Ugh, pimf.

To make my point clearer:

Just one example will serve the purpose, here. Giuliani revoked the 1960's era (Knapp Commission on police corruption) policy that prevented uniformed officers from making drug arrests. The result of the Knapp Commission policy was...

[narciso]

Unofortunately the Diallo and Louima cases forced the elimination of special drug and criminal enforcement units like the Condors
in NY; similar to the "Jump Out Boys" here in South Florida. The work of such units was
minimized indeed stigmatized in such pieces
as one written by David Bairstow in the Times (who at last check has had a Baghdad beat for some time now). The story was so
badly skewed "Najaf undertakers, laid off
by surge" that Arch Puddington, eviscerated
it in Commentary; pointing out, for instance, that many of the critics of strong policing had criminal records (this is a corollary to Fox Butterfield's too many
prisoners raise the crime rate) either that
or John Di Ulio's democratic bulge came in later than expected. It's likely that Kelly will run for mayor, Bloomberg for Gov. next time, and Spitzer for "King of the World"; more likely be considered for Atty General or Judge next time. By the way, what ever
happened to Kimba Wood; the AG candidate sideswiped by the whole nanny gate which gave us Janet Reno; and more significantly
her underling; Jamie Gorelick
around

[vinman_from_wikistan.com]

declining. . stock. .value.. . Why worry now about being accurate & objective?

[bgates]

We may have reached the point where murders actually committed in New York are outnumbered by murders depicted on tv. We've also reached the point where war crimes actually committed in Iraq are outnumbered by war crimes depicted in movies (and in newsweeklies, and daily newspapers, and Congressional statements....) I wonder if Josh Marshall is worked up about that.

Wait, no I don't.

[Steve Skubinna]

I suppose had Harry Truman been a Republican, today's pundits would be claiming the person most responsible for ending WWII was Emperor Hirohito.

[J Mann]

The really amusing part of this story isn't the raw number of murders on the police procedurals at all.

Steve Sailer has been pointing out for years that the number of white murderers on the combined law and order shows dwarfs the actual number of white murderers in New York by at least an order of magnitude.

[pollyusa]

Crime Rates dropped significantly all over the nation in the same time period. Including LA and the District of Columbia (see link).

There may be something to this theory regarding a possible explanation of the reduction in the national crime rate in the 1990's presented here.

[Cecil Turner]

Crime Rates dropped significantly all over the nation in the same time period. Including LA and the District of Columbia (see link).

I don't think that explains it, as even by comparison, New York dropped dramatically. New York went from "the murder capital of the US" in 1990 to one of the ten safest large US cities in this decade. (With a rate less than 1/6th of D.C.) And the rate continues to drop.

[r m flanagan]

Just discussing facts.

So far this year NYC deaths were something like 400 by people known to the victim, 35 by strangers. I wonder what those numbers looked like back when deaths were north of 2000/yr.

Whatever the actual numbers , seems likely that in order for the total to drop as much as it has there has had to have been a drop in both constituents. That leads to the question of the connection ,if any, of NYC's improved policing upon the rate of killings by parties known to the victim.

We know that crime dropped across the country (altho not as much as in NYC) and I seem to remember that this drop occured not only in cities which emphasized reducing crimes e.g. with an increase in the size of the force- among many strategies- but also in cities which did not.

BTW Dinkens put through an increase in the NYC force which was just coming on stream when Bratton arrived.And installed Kelly as his police commissioner. So I don't agree with TM's disparagement of Dinkens on this particular front.

But back to my speculation . Absent data my guess is that the "death by known assailants" number may have dropped nationwide for demographic reasons which is why the do-nothing cities also showed a good trend. And that the greater drop in NYC's overall rate may have been because of its greater success in reducing the death by strangers component which must surely been much higher than 35 when G took over.

As for Kelly, I think I'm right in recalling that Guiliani inherited him from Dinkins and considered keeping him but then decided to hire Bratton who had already presided over a
marked reduction in Boston's crime.

Further on Kelly , he was sent by Clinton to Haiti to attempt to create a police force there. I've read no reports on his success but the whole task needed to be
repeated some years later. Perhaps inevitably. Guiliani , of course followed Bratton with a number of replacements including the equivocal Kerick whom Romney discussed at length today.

As Cecil Turner says the nyc rate has continued to drop under Bloomberg and Kelly
whereas in some other cities the rate has turned around..

As a "Howard Dean"democrat from just outside the city, I have no doubt that Guiliani deserves credit for the improved crime rate.

(And for other less discussed things like
ambulance response time- and putting Scopetta in charge of foster care services).
He makes things happen.

[r m flanagan]

Re: death by acquaintances.

A number of sources seem to indicate that in the 90s that % was around 50%. ( It had been much lower earlier). So Guiliani probably inherited a city in which around 1000 people were killed by someone they knew. In his last year there were something like 680 murders and if that 50% level held these acquaintance-murders had dropped from
1000 to 340.

But we know that in 2007 that % has dropped to about 8%. So it seems likely that in G's last year it was less than 50%. To chose a mid point,if it were 25% then , these acquaintance murders had dropped from 1000 to ,say, 170 while murder by strangers had dropped from 1000 to 500.

I would guess that G's better policing was more responsible for the drop in the second category than the first.

I don't draw any conclusion.I doubt if any
should be drawn. Just wanted to see
what the numbers suggested.