"During the 1990s, crime rates in New York City dropped dramatically, even more than in the United States as a whole. Violent crime declined by more than 56 percent in the City, compared to about 28 percent in the nation as whole. Property crimes tumbled by about 65 percent, but fell only 26 percent nationally.
Many attribute New York's crime reduction to specific "get-tough" policies carried out by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration. The most prominent of his policy changes was the aggressive policing of lower-level crimes, a policy which has been dubbed the "broken windows" approach to law enforcement. In this view, small disorders lead to larger ones and perhaps even to crime. As Mr. Guiliani told the press in 1998, "Obviously murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes. But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other."
What Reduced Crime in New York City
What I like to call "coddle policy" like Midnight basketball, and moving kids through a broken education system where teachers are risking their very lives going to work because the thugs have taken over the schools, as opposed to taking real action like increasing the police presence, and effecting real arrests of identified gang bangers, and trouble instigators is what drives this very real sense that the lawless 'run the city'....
"Corman and Mocan identify several factors that could affect crime rates. For example, the police force in New York City grew by 35 percent in the 1990s, the numbers of prison inmates rose 24 percent, and there were demographic changes, including a decline in the number of youths."
What Reduced Crime in New York City