"Guliani discovered that the best thing for a politician to do is to reduce crime so he tells his cops "reduce crime or else" and the easiest way to do it is to cook the numbers."
Born and raised in NYC, lived there until the late '90s.
Perhaps there was some number cooking (hard to believe there wouldn't be) , but Giuliani (maybe more so his Chief of Police, whose name eludes me) realized that if you start hassling people for the little shit, you have a good chance of grabbing someone with a outstanding DAT or warrant. Grab people for jumping turnstiles, hustling change, open bottles of beer, whatever, all the things Dinkins was ignoring.
Once you've got someone you can run checks on them and often hold them for something more serious.
And it was good for the city, financially at least, because if downtown/midtown was safer, or even just felt safer, more people went there and business thrived.
(Downside: Times Square seems to have become a branded theme park. Oh well.)
I don't doubt what you (or the other person that responded to this thread) said. I did live in new york in the late 90's and early 00s and it did feel much safer than the movies let me believe. I was just noting that the police trying to cook the crime figures is due to political pressure, which is also pretty certain.
Born and raised in NYC, lived there until the late '90s.
Perhaps there was some number cooking (hard to believe there wouldn't be) , but Giuliani (maybe more so his Chief of Police, whose name eludes me) realized that if you start hassling people for the little shit, you have a good chance of grabbing someone with a outstanding DAT or warrant. Grab people for jumping turnstiles, hustling change, open bottles of beer, whatever, all the things Dinkins was ignoring.
Once you've got someone you can run checks on them and often hold them for something more serious.
And it was good for the city, financially at least, because if downtown/midtown was safer, or even just felt safer, more people went there and business thrived.
(Downside: Times Square seems to have become a branded theme park. Oh well.)