By Jason L. Riley – The Giuliani administration won wide praise for making the city safe again, but William Bratton, the New York City police commissioner in the mid-1990s, told filmmakers that the dramatic reduction in crime stemmed from the ability of police to focus on maintaining order and not simply on capturing criminals after the fact. “In the 1970s and ’80s, police moved away from dealing with disorder on the streets and instead focused on responding to crime,” he said. “We didn’t deal with quality-of-life crime at all.”
Most people didn’t want cops off the street and sitting in their patrol cars waiting for 911 calls about serious crimes, Mr. Bratton said. Rather, they wanted the police to address things they saw every day: prostitution, graffiti, abandoned cars that weren’t towed away, gangs occupying street corners. The focus on lower-level offenses ultimately led to fewer serious crimes. Read More