Gordon Fitch wrote:
> >I'll defend the libertarians (and some commies, too) by
> >noting that an increased police presence in Black areas did
> >not have the desired result.
Doug Henwood:
> What was the desired result that didn't materialize? There's no
> question that crime rates are down sharply in the poorest (i.e.,
> brownest and blackest) neighborhoods of NYC. I spent a lot of time in
> Bed-Stuy in 2000, because my beloved was living there, and there was
> virtually no visible crime. Five or 10 years ago, there were
> shootings all the time. This peace has come at a high price -
> repression and mass incarceration - but policing did have its desired
> effect. And by all accounts, the residents aren't happy with the
> repression, but they are happy that flying lead is no longer endemic.
> So what didn't work?
I was thinking somewhat further back than the Giuliani era. In regard to just recent times, it was my impression that violent crime was down all over the place, not just New York City, for reasons which are not agreed upon by everyone. (It may have simply gone out of fashion for awhile, the drugs in use may have changed, demographics may be involved, and so on.) I've been living in a non-White neighborhood for the last ten years or so, and I'd say that the number of police did not increase under Giuliani but rather than their behavior changed. However, my car was broken into on the average of about once a year under both the Dinkins and the Giuliani regimes, regardless of variations in police presence or behavior, so this sort of thing seems to be a constant.
What I was really trying to do was question was what I thought was a false choice, highly redolent of bourgeois prejudice, between police repression of the poor and "chaos". I'm sorry to have stumbled over mere facts on the way. I should have a better collection.
-- Gordon