Did Rudy Really Tell Three Whoppers In One Sentence?

Comments (63)

David in NY wrote on November 6, 2007 4:43 PM:

One modification necessary to what you say. Most of the New York City Corrections system is on Rikers Island, a number of jails housing different type of populations amounting to several thousand prisoners. While not all of the City system, it accounts for all but a few jails near courthouses. I don't know if 60 minutes was talking about Kerik's effect on the whole of Rikers Island or on only one or another troubled jail there, but if he had a beneficial effect on Rikers, that was an effect on most of the system.

One note: One of the non-Rikers jails is connected to the Tombs in lower Manhattan. Despite Kerik's brief tenure as head of DOC, it was named after him. No more. That name is gone, following his own run-ins with the law.

Brianm0122 wrote on November 6, 2007 4:49 PM:

Maybe the crime drop had more to do with the thousands of more police officers on the streets?

The city emerged form a devastating financial crisis at just about the beginning of Rudi's tenure. Thousands of new police officers were hired, resulting in less crime.

Bratton's "community policing" policies also had something to do with the crime drop, I'm sure, but several thousand police extra officers had some effect, too.

dalloway wrote on November 6, 2007 4:54 PM:

Rudy also takes credit for the "comstat" system. It was actually a guy named Jack Maple (a deputy commissioner, formerly the head of NYC Transit Police) who brought it to Bill Bratton, who convinced Rudy to give it a try.

Greg wrote on November 6, 2007 4:58 PM:

David, good point. I'll probably do an update. still remaining is the lie that 60 min said system was "best in the country."...

linda wrote on November 6, 2007 5:06 PM:

i just watched a promo for tonite's nightly news. brian williams has an extended interview with rudy! and the segment they just played was an uninterrupted critique of hillary clinton. so, instead of discussing his ever-changing positions on any number of issues -- or his friggin endless stream of lies, rudy! is provided an opportunity to deride hillary clinton. and brian just sits there like the lump he is.

digby has a very important post about what is going on here -- particularly the g.e. media outlets. they are intent on destroying clinton and neutering any potential viable candidate, while advancing the republican -- and at the moment rudy! is the beneficiary.

megisi wrote on November 6, 2007 5:11 PM:

Oh, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy ... whatever are we gonna do with you?

Crazy as a rat in a tin can, more dangerous than Bush ever dreamed of being and dishonest in a way Bernie Kerik could only dream of.

And, yet, many Americans continue to think of him fondly as a hero.

Somebody say, "amen."

Dan wrote on November 6, 2007 5:25 PM:

Greg -

Can you add the source for your chart? Also, consider starting your chart in 1990 so we can see that there was a steeper decline in crime during the end of the Dinkins Administration than there was during the Rudy! years.

Dr. Squid wrote on November 6, 2007 5:30 PM:

It would be instructive to look at the previous 3 years, seeing as that graph seems to indicate that the drop started before Giuliani started.

I also point out that the drop in crime coincided with crack falling out of fashion, a development that could be better credited to Whitney 'crack is wack' Houston than Giuliani.

John R wrote on November 6, 2007 5:32 PM:

BELOW IS A PARTIAL EXPLANATION ABOUT CRIME/NYPD/COMPSTAT THAT I GAVE TO MY POLICING CLASS.

The NYPD brass (i.e. Bratton and his administrators such as Jack Maple), Giuliani, and many others favorably predisposed to zero-tolerance/quality of life policing and other equally aggressive law and order strategies, made numerous much hyped claims (and still do!!!!) that it was as a result of COMPSTAT and the accountability that ensued that crime in NYC dropped nearly 74% in the 1990s. Yet, crime in NYC had already started dropping for many of the most serious crimes-albeit with some yearly fluctuations-in the late 1980s/early 1990s. And since Giuliani wasn't elected until 1993, and Bratton did not institute COMPSTAT in its full strategic form until 1994, it would appear (and has since been supported by empirical analysis) that such thinking has "causal ordering" backwards." That is, the "cause" cannot "cause" the "effect" if the "effect" comes before the "cause."

Or, more specifically, COMPSTAT cannot claim to be the cause of the crime drop if the crime drop began before instituting COMPSTAT.

Additionally, because programs generally have at least a year lag time before any policy such as this can have a measurable effect on crime rates, this would mean that by the time COMPSTAT could demonstrate any influence on crime in NYC, crime had already decreasing for about a half-decade. However, and this is a big however, I also noted that it could be that COMPSTAT might have caused crime rates in NYC to drop more rapidly in the mid 1990s and caused rates to drop for a longer period during the compared to if COMPSTAT had not been instituted. In other words, COMPSTAT might not have caused the crime to drop in NYC during the 1990s but it might be partially responsible for it dropping more quickly and for a longer period than other places. There is "some" evidence to support this theory, but that evidence is a bit weak and flawed. There is another point that I forgot to mention in the lecture about the unlikely cause-effect relationship between COMPSTAT and crime rate decreases. Because this management program caused a great deal of upheaval in the NYPD and placed enormous pressure on police officers and administrators, there is some suspicion that an appreciable proportion of crime did not get recorded in the official statistics in order to "demonstrate" successful crime reduction strategies at the precinct level. This speaks to individual and precinct corruption because of COMSTAT’s deleterious effects. While it is unknown as to how widespread this was or still is and how much it affected the crime decline, there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that it indeed occurred.

Should anyone continue think that COMPSTAT was the main cause of NYC's record crime drop, then they should remember that other cities such as San Diego, CA; Austin, TX, and San Jose, CA, and many other large and small cities serve to undermine that theory since they too experienced large, albeit varying, decreases in crime during the 1990s. For example, San Diego, a city that did not substantively change its policing policies during the 1990s, experienced a near equal crime rate decrease as NYC at about 73%! Many other cities that experienced large crime reductions also had not made substantive changes in their policing strategies and those that did, did not necessarily institute COMPSTAT. While a large percentage of police departments currently use some version of COMPSTAT (the percentage is unknown), this was not the case in the mid 1990s. Taken at face value, it suggests we must look elsewhere for the cause of the amazing crime drop in NYC and in the US in the 1990s.

Xenos wrote on November 6, 2007 5:32 PM:

Bratton deserves most of the credit for cleaning up New York. He was not strictly loyal to Rudy, so Bratton was tossed and Kerick put in for the last year of Rudy's mayoralty.

David in NY wrote on November 6, 2007 5:35 PM:

"I'll probably do an update. still remaining is the lie that 60 min said system was "best in the country.""

I was just suggesting a technical correction. I tend to doubt that Kerik was responsible for any improvement in the City system and certainly that he made it the "best" anywhere. I do know of people who might be able to say, however, and will try to get you that information.

Rob wrote on November 6, 2007 5:36 PM:

Is it possible to track NYC crime stats against the US as a whole? The additional police officers were an effect of an improving fiscal condition nationwide and crime goes down as an effect of lower unemployment and other conditions of an improving economic enviornment.

There was a drop in crime coincident with the "community policing" efforts of getting rid of the skweegee bums and criminalizing panhandling but I have always wondered how much of an effect. Also a side effect of Rudy's policing efforts was the antagonism felt at the community level towards the police due to them acting like an occupying military force rather than a community police force.

bvd wrote on November 6, 2007 5:43 PM:

Everyone's been fooled by Rudy from the start. During his tenure crime did indeed drop. But it began dropping during the Dinkins administration. It also dropped dramatically throughout the tri-state area during the same period Rudy was mayor. There were regular news stories at the time about how Nassau County, Suffolk County, New Jersey, et al crime rates had dropped to the lowest levels since the early 1960s. This was also true in many major cities throughout the country during the same period. Rudy had nothing to do with that.

Rudy should get some credit but the old saw about him single-handedly obliterating crime in NYC is absurd. If he did that then why did crime go down all around the region and throughout much of the country during the same period?

John R wrote on November 6, 2007 5:48 PM:

To Rob,

Yes, it is possible. You should check out the Levitt article, "Why Crime Fell in the 1990s" (2004) in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18,1, Winter 2004, which is but one academic article that helps dispense the hype.

Also, check out the book "The NYPD Battles Crime" by John Jay College of CJ professor Eli Silverman. It is perhaps the best historical account of the inner workings of the NYPD up through the Giuliani Mayoral Administration.

In any event, as I noted in my first long comment, crime dropped across the nation in cities large and small and there were other cities such as San Diego and Austin that had incredibly large decreases in crime.

Rob wrote on November 6, 2007 5:49 PM:

"If he did that then why did crime go down all around the region and throughout much of the country during the same period?"

I'm sure Rudy will tell you that he was indeed responsible for that too as all other mayors followed his shining example.

John R. wrote on November 6, 2007 6:02 PM:

Rob, that's the key question. But not only did it go down in the tri-state area, it went down nationally.

Not only that, it started decreasing BEFORE Giuliani took office, as noted by bvd.

In fact, COMPSTAT wasn't even Bratton or Giuliani's idea but rather it began under Dinkins as well. Though Bratton unarguably expanded it and smartly incorporated the technological advances that made crime mappping, data collection and analysis much easier during the 1990s.

freddy wrote on November 6, 2007 6:04 PM:

"ultimate result."

It's getting so I can parse the lies.

"Ultimate result" means that Kerik put the policies in place that led to the overall figure.

Any bets this is what Rudy claims if challenged?

Dr. Squid wrote on November 6, 2007 6:08 PM:

"If he did that then why did crime go down all around the region and throughout much of the country during the same period?"

I'm sure Rudy will tell you that he was indeed responsible for that too as all other mayors followed his shining example.

Of course, that wasn't exactly the case either. While most of the country saw a drop in crime and the murder rate starting in the mid '90's, Indianapolis saw increases. Seems as Indianapolis was a little later than everyone else was to the crack party, and saw the increase in crime later than everyone else did in the late '80's. And when crack went out there, the crime rate did, too.

The fact that their GOP mayor at the time was also a barking, crooked moron is better left for another time.

Rob Schmidt wrote on November 6, 2007 6:11 PM:

I don't think Giuliani was necessarily saying the improvements happened during Kerik's term. He could've been saying, "Mistakes were made with Kerik, but look at my overall record." In other words, "I reduced crime so much in NYC that the Kerik appointment doesn't matter. Judge me on my long-term record, not my short-term missteps."

Daniel wrote on November 6, 2007 6:20 PM:

Meanwhile, Rudy is much weaker than expected against Clinton in a must-win state: Texas!! Check out the new Rasmussen poll that even has Clinton leading Romney!

Tejas Geek wrote on November 6, 2007 6:20 PM:

Hmm,
nationwide, violent crime dropped roughly 60% from 1994 to 2004, from 51.2 incidents per thousand to 21.1 incidents per thousand. Actually doing the math, I get a 58.8% reduction. National figures from the DOJ, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/viortrdtab.htm and http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm

So Rudy and Kerik were average... That make Rudy qualified to be president?

Now lookie here wrote on November 6, 2007 6:21 PM:

How come this here Rudee wants the credit for everything... but doesn't take the credit for those two planes slammen into buildens?

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 6:36 PM:

John R blusters a lot, but he hasn't looked at the most significant figures.

Murder is the best gauge for a crime rate, because virtually every murder comes to light. Other crime stats fluctuate as much with the confidence of the public as with the crime. Thus, a better police department may flush out more reports of crime.

The murder rate declined a tiny bit under Dinkins. It suddenly plummeted under Bratton. Compstat was not everything. Dinkins had laid the groundwork, creating better relations between minorities and the police, so that enforcement would not automatically and immediately provoke bitter cries of racism. And much of Bratton's success was in management - in forcing commanders to take responsibility for what happened in their beats. No longer could one shrug off the murder epidemic as if blacks just shoot each other, and the police have nothing to do with it. Suddenly, the police acknowledged that violence was more likely to happen if the police took it less seriously.

In the context of 80's and 90's popular theories of crime, this was actually a profoundly anti-racist program.

And it worked. But it wasn't Bernard Kerik who brought it about. It was Bratton.

Note that Bratton also brought about an immediate and sustained reduction in the murder rate in LA. And that when Chicago adopted Bratton's approach, there was an immediate reduction that has continued to this day.

Anonymous wrote on November 6, 2007 6:39 PM:

And Josh, I'd point out that the Bratton experience is actually more fodder for your criticism of Giuliani.

Bratton worked a miracle, something like the miracle worked by Paul Vallas in the Chicago schools -- these are two men who between them changed our image of cities. In 1988, the depiction of cities was Fort Apache the Bronx -- wastelands of former civilization. The image of the city in America isn't exactly the Beacon on the Hill today, but they are widely viewed as places amenible to decent living.

How did Giuliani reward such an incredible turnaround? Bratton refused to let Giuliani take all the credit, so Rudy ousted him!

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 6:39 PM:

Whoops, forgot my identifies on that last post. The Bratton defender and Rudy antagonist was me.

Mark B. wrote on November 6, 2007 6:42 PM:

The REAL reason crime dropped in New York? It was part of a nationwide drop in crime in the 90s associated with a booming economy. Does Rudy take credit for that, too?

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 6:46 PM:

And as many have pointed out, the national figures didn't go down all at once. In the mid-90's, most of the entire national decline in the murder rate was in NY City itself.

The ensuing decline mostly occurred as other cities adopted Bratton's techniques.

It's also important to point out thta Clinton's "100,000 police" made all this possible. One core of the Bratton strategy was identifying violence hotspots through CompStat, and then temporarily flooding them with officers until the crisis died down. The key factor was shots fired, and in every city that relies on Bratton's strategies, shots fired become a very important statistic. The idea is that gang murders don't just suddenly happen. They bubble up, as two gangs fire warning shots, and macho dudes take it a step further with each round.

The old policing way was to treat shots fired as an event that was over and done with. Bratton analyzed them as symptoms that told him where he needed to treat the disease.

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 6:47 PM:

Mark B,
I'll just say that there was no sudden and dramatic change in the NYC economy in 1994. No sudden and dramatic change in the economy in Chicago in 2003. Your theory simply doesn't accord with the statistics.

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 6:53 PM:

Another problem with the analysis here is that people equate the tactics that worked with the squeegee-men theory. That was a tiny thing (and notably, that was Giuliani's key contribution). Again, the core idea was shots fired. You'll notice that the published statistics on the NYPD site, and Bratton made an absolute fetish of publishing statistics as a way of holding his people accountable, make no mention of squeegee-men arrests or so-called "quality of life" arrests. Instead, they track shots-fired. This became true in LA as soon as Bratton arrived, and it became true in Chicago when Cline brought the Bratton reforms there.

The Chicago decline was a gentle 5-7% drop each year from the early 90's to 2002, at which point academics were saying that all their statistics suggested the murder rate would probably go up again. Instead, it dropped 25% from 2003 to 2004, when Cline took the Bratton tactics citywide.

Anonymous wrote on November 6, 2007 7:01 PM:

this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_New_York_City_crimes_and_disasters

Has an annual murder rate chart at the bottom, where you can see murders decline from
1990 - 2262
1991 - 2154
1992 - 1995
1993 - 1946 (Dinkins leave at END of year)
1994 - 1561 (Bratton's 1st year)
1995 - 1178
1996 - 983

This wiki page shows Chicago's murder rate at the bottom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago
I won't add to the length by quoting each year here, but go to the chart, and guess which year saw Bratton's tactics adopted in Chicago.

(A = 2003-2004)

John R wrote on November 6, 2007 7:03 PM:

Blustering I suppose is my profession. But thanks for acknowledging the obvious.

You might want to note that my really long comment was from a paper for my policing theory students, not just some rambling screed.

But Ryan, you are only partially right. I have examined the available research for on this for the past 15 years and the "correct" figures; that is all of the crime figures available.

Homicides are indeed the most reliable figures in terms of pure reliability because of what Ryan has stated.

They are also the most popular but they are not necessarily the most valid in determining the overall crime rate of a city since they often do not rise and fall with other crimes when looking at trends. That is why we look at multiple indicators, not just one.

Nonetheless, while homicides did not drop as drastically before Giuliani/Bratton as they did after (which I openly note) , I did suggest that the changes brought about by Bratton might be partially responsible for the size and length of the decrease. But the research on this is not nearly enough to make such a definitive claim.

But Giuliani and his supporters have yet to get over the obstacle that homicide and other serious crime rates dropped nearly as drastically across the nation, particularly in ten other large cities (over 500k) and across the NYC metro areas as they did for NYC during the same time period.

Arguably many of them did not institute COMPSTAT type programs during that time (but some have more recently) and regardless of whether it was one year or more, it did start dropping beforehand.

Anonymous wrote on November 6, 2007 7:17 PM:

But John R, you really do need to acknowledge that in the three largest cities, the biggest drop was precisely timed to the adoption of Bratton tactics. (I haven't looked at stats for other cities, but certainly in those three, and dramatically in New York and Chgo, the two I'm most familiar with, and presented above.)

I know it is prudent to say that the statistics are ambiguous. I know that no academic wants to go out on a limb while statistics remain ambiguous. But the default theory simply HAS TO BE that Bratton's tactics are responsible. Those who say differently need to acknowledge the amazing accuracy of the statistics in pinpointing exactly when Bratton's tactics were adopted, acknowledge that the other putative causes have no such intimate relation to the changes in the statistics, and ..

maybe ...
maybe then, they can BEGIN to talk about other POSSIBLE causes, for which there is very little statistical evidence.

But to have people who blither on about the idiots at the U of C and their abortion study, and not mention that the murder rates didn't drop gradually nationwide for a decade, but instead, dropped precipitously in a series of places, with the timing of those sudden declines bearing no relation to any sudden availability of abortion 20 years before, nor to any sudden change in the economy.

It's just horrible practice on the part of academics. One can't help but assume that they just have such a bad image of cops that they find it very difficult to admit that changes brought about by a policeman, changes that no academic suggested, and that were criticized by many academics, were the overwhelming factor.

Ryan wrote on November 6, 2007 7:19 PM:

And again, this failure to grapple with the causes of the decline means a failure to see Rudy's real vulnerability. Voters have a visceral sense that things in our cities changed because of what Bratton did in NY. Rudy's vulnerability here is exactly the vulnerability Josh has been pointing out. The fact that his ego was unable to handle Bratton's success.

bvd wrote on November 6, 2007 7:23 PM:

Greg Sargent wrote in the accompanying piece about media coverage of Rudy:

"My view is that many in the media elite still view Rudy as a kind of harmless buffoon who's only being talked about as Presidential material because he hit the political jackpot on 9/11."

Wrong. Dead wrong. They view him as unreproachable and a hero. Kucinich is a buffoon and they have no problem making him out to be one ("Did you see a UFO?"). But Giuliani is The Mayor Who Stopped Crime and comforted us after the WTC attacks. The fact that this is all "thilly" (Rudy's favorite word) doesn't matter. They'll print the legend, not the facts.

Joe Buck wrote on November 6, 2007 7:27 PM:

It gets worse. Most observers give the lion's share of the credit for NYC's improved crime rate to police chief William Bratton, but Giuliani clashed with Bratton, got him fired, and the two men didn't speak for ten years.

Bratton moved to LA, took the police chief job there, and major crime in LA dropped 25 percent on his watch.

Anonymous wrote on November 6, 2007 7:36 PM:

It's also worth noting that San Diego (your only example) is almost unique among major cities in having its working class and poor populations primarily outside the city and across the border in its Mexican suburbs.

Thus, if you look at the ARJIS statistics for 2005, you'll see that exactly 50% of San Diego County murders occurred in the city of San Diego. This is unheard of in American demography. In Chicago and Cook County, the figure has been closer to 85%. And San Diego only gets to 50% because the most violent area of its metropolitan expanse is across the border in Tijuana.

The changes in San Diego, while interesting, have more to do with zoning off crime than with actually changing a culture of violence. New York and Chicago achieved that.

Anonymous wrote on November 6, 2007 7:41 PM:

Wow, and I didn't even realize the scale of the truth in what I was writing ...

Tijuana had a murder a day last year - roughly 365. That means that San Diego had just 1 in 7 of the murders committed within its metro area. I now realize that San Diego's decline is about as important to the nationwide decline in murders in the 90's as, changes in Oak Park, Illinois, or Hastings-on-Hudson.

Please. Sure it was just the changing demographics.

John R. wrote on November 6, 2007 7:51 PM:

Yes there are anti-police academics, but probably far fewer than you think, at least in criminology and criminal justice.

I wouldn't confuse being critical, which is our job, with having "anti" sentiments. It's an important distinction.

As to "blithering", I doubt you have seriously read their work, or the work of many academics. Such statements are only meant to dismiss ideas that may conflict with your own.

Can Levitt's work be criticized? Indeed, and I, along, thousands of others, have on multiple occasions.

But he and his colleagues conducted research that have passed scientific rigor, even if their theories (i.e. abortion) might not hold. Nonetheless, their theories were novel and they had the guts to put it out there for such criticism.

So while you make these blanket claims about default theories and being familiar with only three cities crime rates, you cite little evidence.

Why does Bratton's influence "have" to be anything?

Couldn't serendipity be equally plausible?

adam wrote on November 6, 2007 8:02 PM:

i think Rob Schmidt is right - he wasn't giving kerik any credit. Rudy was just admitting that he himself is corrupt and makes corrupt appointments but gets good results - or at least results, conforming to national trends, he can take sole credit for.

bvd wrote on November 6, 2007 8:02 PM:

NY Times article from 1997:

Crime in Region Is Dropping, But Some Pockets Defy Trend
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Serious crime in the ring of cities and suburbs around New York City has fallen to its lowest level since at least 1980, an analysis of data for the last 16 years shows. But it has not dropped nearly as far as it has in New York City, and it appears to be rising again in a few of the region's most troubled urban areas and the fastest growing suburbs.

The overall decline in crime rates masks increases in the rates of violent crime in the suburban areas of nine counties, including the densely settled Bergen County in New Jersey, a rapidly developing crescent of central New Jersey and high-growth areas of New York State. About three million people live in areas where 1995 crime rates are higher than their 1990 rates. Some 12 million others in the region, plus 7 million in New York City, live in suburbs or cities where crime rates are dropping.

Declines have been recorded from cities like Yonkers and Trenton to suburban areas like Suffolk County on Long Island and rural areas like Litchfield County, Conn. Over all, in the region that rings New York City, the numbers of reported serious crimes like murder, rape and robbery declined twice as fast as in the nation since a peak in 1990.

The decline has occurred, experts say, for the same reasons often credited in New York and the nation. They include demographic shifts that have left many towns with fewer of the young people who typically commit the most crimes, and with more police officers.

''What we are experiencing, we are experiencing as a region,'' said John S. Pritchard 3d, the Police Commissioner in Mount Vernon, N.Y., next to the Bronx. ''The trends are regional trends.''

There's more: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E1DE1531F934A15751C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

Crime went down at a higher rate in NYC. But crime was generally going down significantly throughout the region and in other parts of the country. And not just in the places that took on Bratton's approach.

Timing may not be everything, but it sure helps.

Johnny2Bad wrote on November 6, 2007 8:29 PM:

Oh, please let this guy get the nomination...PLEASE!!

JZ wrote on November 6, 2007 8:48 PM:

The DNC has to be monitoring this stuff, right? Rudy is an oppo-researchers wet dream. I only hope to see the day when finally confronted with all the bs he's been slinging, he collapses in upon himself like a dying star. Oh dare to dream!

John R wrote on November 6, 2007 9:10 PM:

To joe buck,

crime has been dropping in LA for at least seven years prior to Bratton taking stewardship of LAPD...

GR wrote on November 6, 2007 10:25 PM:

Quotes from "60 Minutes II"

"Rikers Island"

Jan 9, 2001

MIKE WALLACE: Under Kerik's command, violence there dropped by 93 percent in five years.

WALLACE: ...and the most violent inmates are handcuffed in nylon tubes so they cannot slash anyone. All this has helped transform one of America's most notorious jails, believe it or not, into a model of order and efficiency.

Fred Smith wrote on November 6, 2007 11:26 PM:

Read Chapter 17 in Wayne Barrett's investigative biography, "Rudy!" if you want to understand the inverse relationship between Giuliani's inflated claims about reducing crime in NYC and the limited impact his leadership, policies and programs actually had on the decline. The analytic chapter is aptly called, "These Statistics are a Crime."

You are absolutely correct that Giuliani has conflated various crime and/or correction department data to exaggerate any role Kerik had in making NYC "governable" in his 15 months as police commissioner.

It's amazing Bernie could have gotten all that done and arranged to have his co-op renovated for free at the same time.

benjoya wrote on November 6, 2007 11:45 PM:

as mentioned previously, crime began falling under dinkins, yet he alone is tagged with tolerating crime, while 12 years of ed koch was a long downward spiral, and no one blames it on him. i wonder why dinkins gets all the blame. i really really reallly wonder.

DML wrote on November 7, 2007 1:12 AM:

Thank you Dr. Squid. The crack cocaine epidemic of the late 80's and its eventual burning out in the early 90's had a huge impact on the rise and fall of crime during that period. Watching Rudy and other law'n'order types take credit for the crime drop just leaves me shakin' my head. I marvel at the fact that so many are so willing to gobble up this baloney.

Anonymous wrote on November 7, 2007 1:22 AM:

>John R wrote on November 6, 2007 9:10 PM:
>To joe buck,

>crime has been dropping in LA for at >least seven years prior to Bratton >taking stewardship of LAPD...

Well, actually, the murder rate had been going up for 3 years prior to the 2003 Bratton hiring, since you asked (or rather stated, incorrectly). It declined that year by nearly 1/4.

Here is the link to the stats page of the LAPD, where if you click on the summary for 2002, where you can see that murders, violent crime overall and part 1 crime overall were up in 2002 from 2001, and also increased from 2000 to 2001. It's possible that the number of traffic stops and other misdeanors committed was down, but it's hard to believe anyone would even trust such statistics, since clearly, those would be more a factor of what the polie chose to enforce than whether the real number of misdemeanors committed had risen or fallen.

Perhaps what had you fooled was the fact that arrests were down!

Here are the stats:
http://www.lapdonline.org/crime_maps_and_compstat/content_basic_view/9098

And be sure that I've read plenty of academic studies, John R. Again, I can understand that you may not have read my post closely, since you clearly don't read things closely. I didn't say I wasn't familiar with crime stats in other cities. I said I was "most familiar" with those in NY and Chgo. Meaning that I was able to summon the basic trends and rough estimates of year over year change without looking them up.

Even a glance at Levitt's paper shows his idiocy. He dismisses the possibility of analyzing nationwide data to find out whether police tactics had changed the crime rate by pointing out, fairly enough, that many departments claimed they changed tactics, to earn grants, but few actually did so.

So he zeroes in on New York ... sort of. First, he shows his ignorance of the problems with using other crime statistics than murders. He also gives the silly answer that others here have given - "the trend started in 90". Well, yeah, murder went down by about 2.5% over the 4 years 89 to 93, and then went down by almost 20%/year from 93 to 96. If that's a single trend, he needs to prove it, not assert it.

Then, he blandly attributes most of the decline to a 40% increase in officers from 91 to 2001, failing to note that 85% of the decline came in the years 93 to 98, over which, the NYPD. The NYPD received two grants to hire more police under Clinton's COPS, in 1995, (deployed in the 96) and in 96 (deployed in 97). The 95 grant actually just moved cops from desks to the streets. The entire program added less than 3,000 cops to a force that was already at 37,000, and most of the change in the number of NYPD officers came after the biggest portion of the change in NYPD murder stats.

Do you really, I mean, really, want to defend Levitt? He's a practitioner of drive-by statistics, and if the lessons of the 90's aren't learned, there will be thousands of deaths attributable to his crappy understanding of how to apply stats in real situations.

That's why I used the term "blithering about Levitt". Because no one who had read the paper and knew anything about what had happened could take him seriously.

And you seem to be current in these things, so surely you're aware of the Chicago experience. Pray tell, why did the Chicago murder rate immediately fall in Harrison district when the Bratton tactics were adopted? Why did the city's murder rate plummet exactly when the tactics were taken citywide?

No long term demographic trends can explain such instantaneous statistical changes as these. If you want to be taken seriously as an academic, you need to grapple with them, and not just say "well, things are always more ambiguous ..." Many times, things are ambiguous, but the declines in Chicago and New York have not been. These were not secular changes resulting from secular causes. They were, as I said in my first post, sudden, dramatic and sustained.

Ryan wrote on November 7, 2007 1:38 AM:

In my haste I left out a key fact. The 45% increase in New York Police Department officers mentioned as a key factor by Levitt ...

overwhelmingly that seeming change was simply the merger of 7,000 transit and housing police with the NYPD.

But Levitt, practicing his drive-by statistics, is unaware of this. Were you? Or did you really pass off the Levitt piece as if anyone could take it seriously.

Because remember, that's the whole thrust of his argument about police strategies:

1) I can't be bothered to deal with anywhere else but New York
2) New York's rate is lower mostly because of the increased number of police (but I can't be bothered to do the research which would have told me the numbers of police didn't actually go up much.) and
3) My abortion theory explains most of the rest of the decline.

Levitt is a poseur. Anyone who cites him in crime statistics arguments while pretending to be an academic involved in crime statistics is likewise a poseur. I think you need to dive back into the archives, John R.

Skidrow wrote on November 7, 2007 8:21 AM:

Kerik was a wannabe thug who felt threatened by his shortcomings.
He surrounded himself with henchmen and "yes men" and destroyed the NYC Corrections Dept.
He was personally responsible for terminating and forcing the retirement of many experienced wardens and higherups and replaced them inexperienced jackasses. As a result, their inexperience and quick rise to power eventually bit him in the ass as they all lined up and exposed his corruptive ways.Kerik was a disaster waiting to happen...thanks Rudy!

scott wrote on November 7, 2007 9:55 AM:

David in NY is correct. As much as I'd like the facts to be different since I hate Giuliani, Rikers Island is the largest penal institution in America with around 30,000 inmates and is New York City's jail. Central Booking, or the Tombs, down at the courthouse is really just a holding facility for the city's one jail and thats Rikers.

DanF wrote on November 7, 2007 10:02 AM:

There was an interesting article about lead poisoning in children and violent crime this past summer. There is actually sound science behind the proposition that if Barney Fife's dog had been mayor, crime would have gone down in NYC anyways:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701073.html

JohnnyThief wrote on November 7, 2007 10:17 AM:

One thing to keep in mind, is that part of Ghouliani's tactics were to change the way calls were taken. Once in office, police were no longer to file a report for calls that were responded to that did NOT result in an arrest. The CALLS didn't change, in fact, they rose as the population rose, just the amount of police paperwork dropped.

Then Ghouliani gets on TV & spins it that crime has dropped off in huge numbers.

John R wrote on November 7, 2007 10:46 AM:

How much research have you done Ryan?

With talk like that it shows that you either don't know what the hell you are talking about or that you are armed with a tiny morsel of knowledge and think you know it all.

anonymous wrote on November 7, 2007 10:49 AM:

On Rikers...

"As the years passed, one of his top deputies was convicted of taking $142,000 from a Correction Department charity that Mr. Kerik headed. Another deputy, Anthony S. Serra, became a warden at Rikers Island even after he was accused of coercing officers to work on Republican campaigns. He was later convicted of forcing staff members to do campaign work and dispatching officers to renovate his upstate home." (NYT, 11/3/07)

And, um, this is the job where he fully embraced the mob and allegedly committed the felonies he's expected to be indicted for. (same article)

Not to mention BILL BRATTON turned around the city, and Rudy's reward was to FIRE HIM, and replace him with a guy who was a total crook. Still, you can see Kerik's appeal to Giuliani--he had a love shack at Ground Zero, just like Rudy's bunker.

paul wrote on November 7, 2007 11:00 AM:

Oh, and just by the way, it's quite possible for gradual changes (demographic or otherwise) in one variable to lead to sudden, dramatic shifts in another. The list of systems with interesting tipping points is pretty much endless. (Just try the gradual change of driving one degree to the right of the direction your road is going...)

paul wrote on November 7, 2007 11:01 AM:

Oh, and just by the way, it's quite possible for gradual changes (demographic or otherwise) in one variable to lead to sudden, dramatic shifts in another. The list of systems with interesting tipping points is pretty much endless. (Just try the gradual change of driving one degree to the right of the direction your road is going...)

Eskwaya wrote on November 7, 2007 11:46 AM:

Greg,

The best indicator of crime is usually the economic indication. You might also show that the economy was at the start of a boom cycle when Giuliani came in. Arguably, Giuliani could have had no effect on crime in NYC and the rate would still have gone down due to the economic conditions.

Dave wrote on November 7, 2007 11:49 AM:

You should correct one factual inaccuracy: Rikers Island is not "one jail." Aside from the Houses of Detention, most of which are closed for renovations at this time, the Barge, and the city hospital prison wards, here is a list of the detention and correction facilities on Rikers Island:

James A. Thomas Center JATC HDM
14-14 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-
Anna M. Kross Center AMKC C-95
18-18 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-3550
Eric M. Taylor Center EMTC CIFM C-76
10-10 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-5750
North Infirmary Command NIC
15-00 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-1150
Otis Bantum Correctional Center OBCC
16-00 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-6449
West Facility
16-06 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-4150
Robert N. Davoren Complex RNDC C-74
11-11 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-6950
George Motchan Detention Center GMDC C-73
15-15 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-4550
George R. Vierno Center GRVC
09-09 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-2107

Rose M. Singer Center
19-19 Hazen St., East Elmhurst, N.Y. 11370
Business Hours Phone: (718) 546-7450

Ryan wrote on November 7, 2007 12:15 PM:

John R,

I take that as an admission you had no idea of the schoolboy flaw in Levitt's work. Nice chatting.

Michael Lafferty wrote on November 7, 2007 4:02 PM:

So, as my officemate Mark asks, "…is this not the same Rudy Giuliani who claims to have landed a 68 pound largemouth bass on 2 pound test line?" Uh, yeah: it is.

He notes that this claim is potentially a problem for 'America's Mayor,' as the official WORLD RECORD catch of largemouth bass stands—since June 2, 1932—at just 22 pounds and 4 ounces. Nothwithstanding the unsubstantiated claims on one California fisherman that he landed one exceeding 25 poiunds a few years ago.

That would make Rudy 'the serial fish story teller' Giuliani's largemouth bass more than three times larger than the largest ever taken. 3x. Ever. Can't this clown get anything right?

angelo wrote on November 7, 2007 11:47 PM:

Thanks for pointing out the obvious. This is simply an outrageous attempt to DIVERT attention away from the actual problem. Rudy's misleading the public with false statistics..& purposely NOT focusing on the criminal issues. Of course his statistics are bogus...in order to keep himself & his croney on top. Instead of getting sidetracked..Let's focus on his Judgement of Character / (i.e. marrying his relative (2nd cousin)/ and & dig deeper into into the corrupt connections that loom.

skidrow wrote on November 9, 2007 4:52 PM:

Kerik indicted...
Watch how far Rudy will distance himself from this cardboard gangster now that more charges have been brought against him. Kerik is a disgrace. The funny thing is, all of this was going on when Rudy was mayor(he was well informed of all of Kerik's doings) but everyone was scared to come forward since they were buddy buddy with each other and took pleasure in destroying careers.
I hope he goes to jail.

Post a comment

Name:
Email Address:
URL:
	Remember personal info?
Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)