One of the Giuliani era’s great insights was that society’s criminal element is in a kind of running dialogue with the police. The cops signal to the bad guys what they’re willing to tolerate in terms of criminal behavior, and the bad guys adjust accordingly. This was the spirit behind the Broken Windows theory developed by scholar James Q. Wilson and criminologist George Kelling. When word got around that the cops wouldn’t let you urinate on the sidewalk anymore, or spray-paint graffiti in the subways, or carry a gun around in your waistband, the bad guys stopped doing these things. It didn’t always work perfectly and the cops occasionally abused their power—in 1997, rogue cop Justin Volpe is alleged to have said it was “Giuliani time” while torturing Abner Louima inside Brooklyn’s 70th precinct station house. But such incidents were rare, and few people pine for a return to the days of the squeegee men.
Read the rest of Matthew Hennessey's City Journal article here.
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