Chicago started with similar conditions as NYC (30 murders per 100000 in 1991), but they didn't have no-nonsense mayors like Bloomberg and Rudy. So its murder rate now is still 5 times that of NYC.
Broken window policing and stop-and-frisk absolutely worked. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional, but it also was highly effective.
CPD generally does whatever NYPD does. The difference is that New York isn't Chicago. Different geography, different forces at work. Peter Moskos wrote a whole book about how NYPD turned things around in the 1990s, and "stop and frisk" and "broken windows", whatever Malcolm Gladwell wants you to believe, don't feature prominently in it.
Chicago had tried Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) in 90-s it was so famous that even I heard about it during my lessons on urban planning. In Russia.
And it was not entirely unsuccessful, but definitely much less effective than policing in NYC.
I read multiple articles from both conservative and progressive sources about the drop of crime in NYC. The evidence is decidedly mixed. "Broken windows" policies probably helped a lot during the 90-s but lost their efficacy by the early 2000-s. Stop-and-frisk probably reduced the rate of serious crimes, mostly through incidental arrests but undermined some of the community trust. It also was unconstitutional.
I obviously haven't read it completely yet, but I read the parts that mention "Broken Windows". So far they seem to basically affirm everything I said:
> Now Bratton had some success in Transit, and well-publicized success, because he decided to stop people from jumping over the turnstiles. It was rampant. They wound up locking up some guy who had like $10,000 and a gun and couldn't be bothered to pay the dollar subway fare. The idea was, if I keep these guys out of the system, crime will go down. And crime went down in Transit, which is why Bratton got Boston and why he got back here. It was like, "This guy might be on to something."
> Operation Alternative
> But you can use the Broken Windows theory. Stopping a guy for drinking beer gave you a chance to run him for a warrant. Is he wanted for a violent crime? Stopping a guy for pissing in the street gave you a chance to issue a summons. Which meant if he couldn't produce ID you could bring him into the station, run his prints, and then find out he was wanted for one of last week's shootings.
Chicago was run by Richard Daly 2 for 20 years during the Guliani era. I’m not sure what a no-nonsense mayor is but Daly resolved a dispute over an airport by having the runway jack hammered over night in the middle of negotiations.
During the 80s CPD ran a torture warehouse. They are currently operating under court direction for their mass use of pre textual traffic stops.
I’m not buying your “just so” story about mayors or hard nosed policing being the difference.
Or… criminals were caught and remained incarcerated leaving rates low. A large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Catch and imprison them and crime drops. This is well supported by data.
As you said, a large part of crime is committed by repeat offenders. Enough time has passed that those people are back on the street. If crime rates have remained low after the end of S&F, then it can't be that.
An unmarked car pulls alongside you, all men are masked inside and the windows tinted. You're ready to fight back or run, but then it turns out it's the police attempting to harass and bully you. Wonderful.
Look up Sean Bell - not a stop a frisk, just an open fire.
Once, my wife and I were stopped, but not frisked, and cited for riding bikes, on a sidewalk at 2AM on a stretch of Atlantic Ave that would kill you to ride on. It made no sense, until I found out that my neighbor and his friend had been murdered at a street party. There was a drag net out trying to find the killer and they stopped anyone for anything.
