Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, April 18, 2010 8:56:37 PM
Some lessons are never learned. In the early '90's every large city in the country was overrun by the crack epidemic. (The only exception was Chicago, where the gangs were strong enough to hold on to the cocaine trade for about five years). Crack was so simple, cheap and marketable that the streets were ruled by whoever was the craziest this week. The cops no longer knew who was in charge.
Then Rudy Giuliani was elected NYC Mayor in 1993, and he brought on Police Chief Bratton. They did three concrete things right away. First, they set baselines for each precinct for crime levels, and held the Watch Commanders accountable for an action plan. Second, if the plan didn't work, they demoted and replaced the Watch Commander. (Boy, did that ever shake up a few people). Finally, they stopped ignoring the little things like subway turnstile jumping and started running every miscreant they encountered into through the system for past warrants, and started to clear the streets.
I worked in NYC in the late '80's. I survived the areas I worked mostly because I look like a cop. Ten years later, I worked the same areas again, and there were Swedish families out there at 11PM, taking pictures of each other on the street.
Those who hated Giuliani derided the crime reduction as something else- changing demographics, statistical manipulation, anything but Rudy.
Now the cities are forgetting these lessons, as all good Democrats will. The increased crime will be passed off to other factors. Nobody in LA is about to look in the mirror and admit that they are so sensitive about their treatment of immigrants that the "Thirteeners" are running rampant on them. The lesson there is, when you create a "sanctuary city", you bring about a circus where other people need the "santuary".
How does one fix the problem? The model of behavior is still there, from NYC almost twenty years ago. Any questions? Feel free to ask me. I lived through it.