As Crime Rises, London Looks to New York for Lessons
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Feb. 16 — Street crime has increased so sharply in this once peaceful city that pedestrians are now more likely to be mugged here than in New York City, British officials say.
The increased lawlessness has been particularly noticeable this year, with a spate of high-profile assaults, carjackings and killings hitting the headlines in London. This week's visit by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who is well known here for the tough line he took against crime when he was mayor of New York, served to focus the government's attention on the problem and sent embarrassed officials scrambling for ideas on how to solve it.
At a flurry of meetings with the British home secretary, the mayor of London and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police force, Mr. Giuliani described again and again how as mayor he transformed New York from a city where people were afraid to walk the streets to a place where crime had fallen by 52 percent by the time he left office in January.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/17/international/europe/17LOND.html]
Carl
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