Originally Posted by
ChinaBeached
Back in the late 80’s & early 90’s the NYC subway crime rate was reduced dramatically by looking at the bigger picture. They re-assessed going after the muggers, vandals & assault assailants & focused on the fare dodgers. The ones jumping the turnstiles, etc. The psychology behind it was that the TYPE of person who’d commit petty crime was also the TYPE who’d potentially be guilty of other crimes. It worked. They also removed all evidence of graffiti nightly so the crime wasn’t visiable & thus setting a culture of it being stopped before it spread. After all, the graffiti vandals want notoriety for their actions so they stopped it.
Well, that's one theory, anyway. It's a long way from established fact, though. The program in the subways was a part of Mayor Guliani's more encompassing "Broken Windows" strategy of policing that extended beyond the transit system to the entire city. Yes, there was a decrease in crime in the time period the policies were implemented. But, as most people understand, correlation is not the same as causation. There were other socioeconomic factors during that same time period which also may have been responsible. More to the point, other locations far from New York *also* saw significant decreases in crime during that same time period. Serious crime in the US generally, was declining during that time period. Yes, some people believe that the broken window strategy was responsible for reducing crime. Obviously, an politician is going to point at something like that and claim credit. However it is also true that there's a bunch of criminologists who disagree, that the decline was due to a combination of other factors. Point being, it's a long way from established fact, amongst people who study that sort of thing.