sociologists query Rudy’s role in crime drop
New York Sun - August 14, 2007 http://www.nysun.com/article/60481
Panelists Question Giuliani’s Effect on Drop in Crime By Staff Reporter of the Sun
The amount of credit Mayor Giuliani deserves in lowering crime in the
1990s was a topic of discussion yesterday in Midtown at a forum
sponsored by the American Sociological Association titled “Why Did
Crime Decline in New York City?”
The panel discussion came during a week in which Mr. Giuliani, the
leading Republican candidate in polls, has said he might tap his
former police chief, William Bratton, for a federal position.
An epidemiologist from the University of Michigan, Sandro Galea,
spoke first, arguing that the nexus between policing, disorder, and
crime was “cloudy.” He interpreted his data as throwing doubt on the
“broken window” theory that pursuing misdemeanor arrests vigorously
works to lower homicides significantly.
Michael Jacobson of the Vera List Institute said putting into effect
the theory must have a social cost, as so many young people then have
criminal arrest records.
A professor at John Jay College, Andrew Karmen, argued that Compstat,
the strategic system praised by Mr. Giuliani, has not worked so well
in several other cities.
Following the program, the presider, Philip Kasinitz of the CUNY
Graduate Center, told The New York Sun that the upshot of the panel
was that policing strategies played a substantial role in reducing
crime but that the interaction of various social conditions, such as
change in drug use patterns, immigration, and gentrification,
probably played a greater role. He said the panel showed the “great
man theory” in reducing crime was overstated, but that the
traditional social scientific view singling out social conditions had
also been overstated.