Criminality in New-York City (NYC)

Résumé du document

In terms of crime, right from the end of the 1970's up to the middle of the 1990's, NY supplanted all the other American cities, including a city like Chicago which was the hub for majority of the crimes in the United States of America. Since 1993 and Rudy Giuliani's coming to power as mayor, the situation has come under control: you can now go for a walk in Times Square even at night or take the underground pass without feeling unsafe. The question is: where does so called the ?miracle of NY' come from?

Extraits

[...] In addition, the criminality had exploded, thus making inhabitants and firms leave NY (the City had lost for eg 550.000 jobs between 1970 and 1976). That was only in 1985 that the NYPD had started to recruit new policemen, and criminality had not declined before 1990. In the early 90's, a cover of Time Magazine called NY City the Rotten Apple, and a headline in the New York Post said : sthg Dave” ; this was addressed to the Mayor David Dinkins. [...]

[...] In other words, he decentralized policing in NY City. In fact, the NYPD was transformed in 76 miniature PD corresponding to the precincts, responsible and accountable for their acts and results; and these little PD were aggregated in 8 wider precincts (North Manhattan, South Manhattan, North Brooklyn, South Brooklyn, North Queens, South Queens, Bronx and Staten Island). Bratton demanded that precinct commanders place dual emphasis on quality-of-life or signs of crime as well as on serious crime. He thus set the macro-level goal of crime reduction and enhancing quality of life, but then let precinct commanding officers manage at the precinct or micro-level by determining how best to do this. [...]

[...] Louima was a young 30-year-old immigrant from Haiti. He was arrested when he tried to intervene in a scuffle outside Club Rendez-Vous, a Brooklyn nightclub. It appears that Louima was then beaten twice in the car while being driven to the police station; on arrival, he was dragged into a lavatory and sodomised by officers with the handle of a toilet plunger, which was then forced into his mouth. When he was eventually taken to hospital several hours later - after having been charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct - Louima was critically ill with a perforated colon, lacerated bladder, several lost teeth and a number of other injuries. [...]

[...] Political context Making crime pay law and order in contemporary American politics, Katherine Beckett (NY Oxford, OUP). From the beginning of the 90's, there was sthg new in the attitude of US politicians toward the crime issue: this new event was the extent of the involvement even initiative of leading Democratic officials in the campaign to get tough in the battle (struggle) against crime. In exercising this initiative, liberals and conservatives alike draw on a rich cultural legacy in which discussions of crime and drugs often serve as vehicles for the construction of the poor as an undeserving and dangerous class Creating the Dangerous class This notion that crime and poverty have their roots in the lifestyles and preferences of the poor has a long history in American political culture; racial and ethnic stereotypes have often informed the conception of poverty- related problems. [...]

[...] Since 1993 and Rudy Giuliani's coming to power as mayor, everything has changed: you can now go for a walk in Times Square even at night or take the underground without feeling unsafe. The question is: where does what some have called the ‘miracle of NY' come from? In this struggle against criminality, the success of NY seems to originate primarily in the Police activity. Anyway, that's what figures tend to prove, as we're going to point in this expose. I. Political context favorable to a tough policy and implementation by Giuliani and Bratton A. [...]