NYPD not so blue

Police Chief Ed Davis has calmed the spikes in crime seen before his arrival. It would be good to see some numbers on crime rates in the past few years in case anyone wants to pass those on. That said, New York’s police commissioner Raymond Kelly brings some good news in a recent New York Post short that he penned. Noting that NYC is still the number 1 target in the country for terrorists, he points to a slimmer police force (5,000 fewer officers) AND lower crime rates.

Today, despite having 5,000 fewer officers, crime is down by nearly 40 percent from eight years ago. At the year’s start, many predicted that crime rates would spike as a result of the collapsing economy, auguring a repeat of the 1970s.

But the opposite has happened. So far this year, crime is down 13 percent compared to last year at this time: Murder are down 23 percent; rapes, 20 percent; robberies, 16 percent; burglaries, 15 percent; grand larcenies, 14 percent, and auto theft, 13 percent.

With their “eighth straight year of falling crime rates”, New Yorkers are not “going back to the past.” This is worth a further look. How much is PR and how much reality? If reality, can we learn from NYC in crime as well as in education?