If you're an economic conservative, public unions should be your enemy #1. They have tremendous leverage in local politics, and the fat pensions they've voted for themselves are the top economic problem facing states and municipalities.

Supporting de Blasio against the police union would strike a major blow. The union would find itself facing opposition from both liberals and conservatives (for different reasons), which would create major leverage in the ongoing negotiations between the union and the city.

I wish there was more discussion about this sort of thing. My pet hypothesis is that nobody holds police unions accountable because conservatives like police and liberals like unions. It's hard to even find discussion about the actual extent of police union influence, much less how bad the effects may or may not be and what should be done about it.

NYC in the '70s and '80s was not that safe. Street crime, muggings, etc. were common. In the 1990s Giuliani stepped up patrols and sarted enforcing what most people thought were petty crimes, such as loitering, graffiti, parking violations, subway-gate-jumping, etc. with the effect that more serious crimes also decreased, and within several years NYC became one of the safest big cities.

Even if you confine your analysis to the USA, the "broken windows" theory of crime does not explain the relative shift in crime towards the suburbs, nor does it explain the increasing epidemic of drugs in rural areas. There is a lot that it does not explain, so it should be treated with suspicion. A theory that only explains one data point is not a theory at all.

Most Western nations have seen decreases in crime during since the late 1980s. The USA had the most crime, and the USA has seen the biggest decrease. No one knows why. New York City has seen the biggest decrease of all the big cities, but figuring out why, given the extremely multi-variate nature of the problem, will be extremely difficult to do. Even those theories that attempt to explain the decline of crime in the USA (aging of the population, Roe vs Wade, unleaded gasoline, change in police tactics) fail to explain why New York City should see the largest decrease in crime, since one can find other cities, for any of those variables, that saw larger changes than New York City.

Some have proposed that outlawing leaded gasoline has led to less lead poisoning in children, thus less aggressive behavior in adults and subsequent decreases in crime.

NBER paper - Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime

[1] - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf

MotherJones story

[2] - http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-li...

Links to criticism of the story above

[3] - http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/01/lead-and-crime...

I've always been confused as to why the broken windows theory presumes that the window is broken because of malicious action. It seems obvious to me that the window was broken accidentally, and as such, the correct response (in police action and otherwise) is to repair the window. Full stop.

I say this without endorsement, just explanation. (I'm ready to believe the evidence suggests it doesn't actually work and that the real drop in crime was another cause, but, on the other hand, academics can sometimes just be contrarians too, it's not just an online thing, and I still give some credence to successful engineering efforts such that one ought to at least consider the original theory.)

It's essentially a slippery slope argument, though I do think there's a little bit of psychological truth to the argument. But I also think there's a really high cost for trying to keep things perfect.

As far as Singapore goes, I don't have a ton of experience there to comment. If their standards end up leading the police to proactively treat people like criminals, then I suppose I wouldn't like that very much.

Worth noting that Asian culture in general seems to have much more of a "compromise the individual for the good of the whole" component, though. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a poor fit with our cultural expectations.

It doesn't.

> It seems obvious to me that the window was broken accidentally

Are you suggesting that no young vandal has ever broken a window on purpose? I assure you, it happens.

> and as such, the correct response (in police action and otherwise) is to repair the window. Full stop.

I don't understand what you're disagreeing with. Has anybody ever seriously argued that the police should punish accidental window breaking? Conversely, if a police officer witnesses somebody throw a rock through a window without cause, should he not stop them?

If it doesn't, then why does the theory call for small crimes to be punished?

i.e., a window broken by malicious act is a bad thing, but ultimately an accidentally broken window will also contribute to crime. The notion is that the appearance of disorder signals that such laws are poorly enforced, as well as decreases the level of responsibility and ownership people feel towards the place ("this place sucks already, what's one more...")

Note that I don't endorse this particular view ;)

I mean, let's say that a vandal deliberately broke a window, and this act is witnessed by a police officer. Arresting the vandal doesn't fix the window, so why does the theory call for such an arrest?

Also, I should point out that the theory doesn't say that an arrest must be made. Maybe they simply intervene and issue a warning. Maybe you record their identity and create a police record of the incident so that the building owner can sue to defray the cost of replacement. Maybe they take the kid back to his parents, so they can offer replace the window. And yes, maybe you arrest them if they've been repeatedly warned in the past or are causing immense property damage. It's all contextual.

The theory just says that the government (not just law enforcement) shouldn't let the little things slide because they lead to bigger problems down the road. You get the most "bang for your buck" by nipping the little things in the bud. You seem to have a warped idea that it means draconian punishments for every infraction, no matter how minor.

For example, during the height of the Broken Windows implementation in New York, transit agencies had a policy of not allowing a vehicle to leave the depot with graffiti on it. It was obviously impossible to catch all vandals in the act, but by cleaning up graffiti as soon as it is found, it sends the message that not only are their acts futile, but that society has no tolerance for this type of behavior.

So to use your example, if you witness a vandal breaking a window, you may fine him, or arrest him if the behavior is particularly repeated or egregious - but in any case you make sure the window gets fixed ASAP such that the appearance of order may be maintained.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/11/24/10-not-entirel...

The reason for this cultural momentum is because it wasn't too long ago that Manhattan was overrun with open drug use, open solicitation of prostitution, three-card-monte scammers, squeegee men, and so on. Central Park was dangerous after dark (and somewhat so even during the day). This is a particular sort of crime that we can imagine is solved by tough policing--and in the judgment of many people, this is exactly what happened.

And while we have a lot of drug activity, homelessness, streetwalking, etc. I believe there is a lower rate of violent/organized crime than NYC.

Of course, Canadians have a much different attitude towards gun ownership than Americans...

That must be why Surrey had more homicides than Seattle in 2013, despite being a couple hundred thousand people smaller, and shall-issue CCW in Seattle.

Maybe, just maybe, something else is involved.

By the way, the Canadian city with the highest murder rate (Red Deer, with a murder rate of 6.4 http://www.macleans.ca/worst-cities/) has a lower murder rate than nearly every city on this list of American cities by crime statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...)

You have a city in an extremely gun-tolerant state (Washington) that has lower violent crime than a city in an extremely anti-gun area (Surrey).

This suggests at least that low crime with liberal gun ownership laws is possible, and also suggests that gun ownership is not a primary factor in determining the level of violent crime.

Surrey's was obtained from this article: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Surrey+murders+four+days+ho...

I doubt our attitudes differ much with respect to violent criminals using guns (or knives or fists) to hurt people, as we are talking about here.

Attitudes on gun ownership by peaceable citizens may be another story.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582041-rich-world-s...

Estonia even decreased their prison population during that period and their crime still fell massively. Whatever is going on, it didn't just happen in New York, so it is not to do with the policies of Giuliani.

edit - Guiliani was a thug who commented about the NYPD's "degree of restraint which is virtually unmatched in the country.", during a Civil Rights Commission hearing about a suspect being sodomised with a broomstick.

If the enforcement is down 90%, there will always be some consequences / impacts down the road. It will not be immediate because it takes some time for criminals to test the new boundaries of what they can get away with.

And for those who think this will hurt the police budget, ticket revenue only accounts for 10% of NYPD budget. It will not lead to layoff.

It will if they think they can blame it on the Mayor. NYPD appears to be throwing a temper-tantrum, I wouldn't exactly expect nothing but rational actions from them.

The same thing is happening in many "gentrifying" cities. Crime goes down in DC as the rates in neighboring counties in Maryland increase.

You get a fantastic correlation between section 8 housing and crime. Eliminating a ton of crime is not very complicated and doesn't require much police work. You just deport all the poor people. That's effectively what happened under Giuliani.

[1] The culmination of those policies led to a cop trying to ticket my mother for jay walking. I say "try" because what happened instead is that she lectured him for a good 20 minutes and in the end he apologized and tore up the ticket.

What you're talking about is a theory of how to boot-strap a reduction in crime: start small. But it also implies that once crime is reduced, the reduction will be self-persisting (for the same reason crime was self-persisting--because of the environment). It does not imply that heavy police presence needs to be permanent.

Anyway, it's never been proved in any real way, it's just an idea that got popular. And a whole lot of cities that Giuliani did not lead also saw significant reductions in serious crime over that same period of time.

Yes, by backing away from issuing summons for minor offenses, there is overlap with what many have rightly sought in the aftermath of Eric Garner's death. To me, that silver lining is coincidental, and it's taking the thunder out of their protest. As a New York City resident who has been closely following the issue, I do fear that the police, with tacit approval by their unions, will expand/escalate their protest (not by harassing minorities, in case that's how my original comment came across) by further scaling back enforcement of crime.

This fear, after all, is exactly what they're trying to leverage.

I don't think we should just sit back and let the situation fold out on its own. Whatever the intention is, if the police force is putting public safety in risk, it's critical to not let that happen.

Reducing patrols and arrests isn't going to spike crime immediately, but if this condition persists for another three months, we might be able to comment. The theory is, people have to notice that enforcement is down/stays down, and therefore it is "safe" to try and commit crimes again.

Interesting side note - the drop in parking tickets etc - is a way for the police to starve the city government of revenue. Apparently $550 million or so per year, so there's that element to consider as well. The city could respond with more cameras / automated tickets, so maybe that winds up backfiring. We'll see.