How NYC Won the War on Crime
It’s a conversation I’ll never forget. My best friend and I were driving down to Manhattan to dine, in what had become a weekly ritual for us. We were discussing the crime in New York City, as many Big Apple residents no doubt did at that time, the mid-1990s. After all, as a result of the then-waning crack epidemic and turpitude-tolerant policies, criminality had been rampant and making headlines. I remember that we mentioned certain statistics, notably that the city had seen approximately 2,000 murders a year.
Our conversation would quickly become eerily and tragically ironic. As we drove along Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx’s Mott Haven section at about 8:40 p.m., we witnessed what turned out to be a high-profile murder, of a well-regarded Hispanic businessman and millionaire named Thomas Cuevas. We spent much of that night in a police station giving witness statements. In yet another irony, a week or two later my friend and I were driving the same route and his car broke down — within probably 30 feet of where the murder had occurred. While in the neighborhood subsequently getting his vehicle repaired, my friend heard grapevine information, which he later related to authorities, that might have aided their investigation. The perpetrators were eventually apprehended — it was at least partially an inside job.
What’s also partially an inside job — perpetrated by politicians peddling bad policy (and, in fairness, the voters enabling them) — is high crime. After all, we know how crime can be quelled. In fact, this process’ effectuation in NYC would transform the metropolis from a murder capital recording 2,262 homicides in 1990 to a remarkably safe big city with, in its best subsequent year, fewer than 300 killings. Yet it wasn’t just homicide that dropped markedly (73 percent) between 1990 and 1999. Those years also saw burglary decline by 66 percent, assault by 40 percent, robbery by 67 percent, and vehicle thefts by 73 percent, reported the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2003.
JBS Member or ShopJBS.org Customer?
Sign in with your ShopJBS.org account username and password or use that login to subscribe.
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Print edition delivery (USA)
*Available Outside USA - Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically