Crime, Policing and Counter-Terrorism

Dollars for Collars and Other Unintended Consequences

Two stories in yesterday's New York tabs offer a crash course in the law of unintended consequences. The Daily News cover story, Cops pay big price for 25G salary, makes the obvious but significant connection between the new starting pay rate, a 40% cut to 1986 entry levels, and a force that's shrunk by 300, despite plans for an 800 officer increase. And even those who join reconsider—the drop-out rate among recruits has doubled to 20%, and at least one cop has applied for food stamps.

In short, Bloomberg was outfoxed by the PBA, which agreed to lower pay for new rookies in exchange for pay raises for veterans, knowing that the rookie pay would have to be pushed back up—and that the raises, of course, would not be scaled down in return. In a nice judo move, the union is actually using screwed-up young cops as an argument for paying young cops more:

…the city's largest police union argued that too many sub-par recruits are being accepted into the academy.

Patrick Lynch, president of the PBA, seized on the high dropout and failure rate of the July class.

"It shows that they have been putting anyone they could get into the academy," he said. "So many other departments in the metro area pay their police substantially more. They are getting the best candidates."

Union officials say their position is supported by the recent arrests of two rookie cops.

In September, Officer Danielle Baymack was arrested for allegedly killing her close friend and fellow officer in a drunken car crash in Long Island. Baymack, who had a checkered driving record before joining the department, graduated from the Police Academy last July.

Last week, Officer Dixon Zapata, who graduated from the academy last January, was arrested for attacking his wife in front of their kids in Brooklyn.

"There is such a scramble, a push, for bodies, there is no way they can give everyone a real checkup," said a police supervisor who works with recruits. The planned expansion of the department was designed to keep a lid on crime as the city's population expands by 200,000 over the next five years.

Meanwhile, the Post reports on that rare crime drop the city is less than eager to claim credit for, or explain, in this short dispatch, here in full:

Police brass want more arrests to com bat rising rates of murders and shoot ings, so they're eliminating limits on over time pay to encourage cops to haul in more perps.

"The more bad guys you put in jail, the less likely they are to shoot and kill people," said a source familiar with the thinking behind the shift in policy.

Department Chief Joseph Esposito announced the change - effective immediately - in a meeting Thursday with borough chiefs and brass in the transit, housing, narcotics and detective bureaus, a source said.

Traditionally, overtime pay is capped at the end of every month or quarter, depending on the command, with a typical limit of about $8,000 per quarter. Additional overtime hours are compensated with time off. But those rules may discourage some officers from making arrests after they hit their limit, because the average collar is a time-consuming process, often running into overtime.

The new policy is a response to the spike in murders in the city this year - almost 10 percent over last year.

As of Dec. 24, there had been 579 murders, compared with 527 during the same period last year. Shootings are up 2 percent, to 1,530.

But overall crime is down 4.6 percent citywide, and busts were up this year 5.5 percent over last year.

Esposito reportedly warned chiefs to keep an eye out for overtime abuses - like deliberately making an arrest at the end of a shift to rack up bigger paychecks.

The Daily News touches on the impact of overtime in their story, closing with

Though overall crime fell 4.7% last year compared with 2005, the murder rate rose 9.2%. Last week, police brass put out the word that overtime would be easier to get, ideally to allow cops to make more arrests.

"It's the old 'dollars for collars,'" said a police official who asked not to be identified. "Is some of it fueled because there are less cops out there? No doubt."

Bloomberg, having been badly out-manouvered, is likely to be forced to push rookie salaries up, and has already restored more generous overtime rules that amount to a de facto raise.

Posted by Harry Siegel at 10:02 AM | Permalink


December 28, 2006

Bratton Does It Again

Even as the FBI's preliminary 2006 data shows crime trending back upward nationally and in big cities, L.A. is reporting a fifth consecutive year of decline under Police Chief Bill Bratton.

Bratton's now managed to quickly and consistently reduced crime rates while running the Boston, New York and Los Angeles police forces, meaning he's done it in three very different cities with very different police forces, and at very different demographic moments. In his words, "You can't be lucky seven times in a row. If I was, I'd be making a living hanging out at the blackjack table."

His success in L.A. comes as

the study found significant per capita increases in violent crime in several Southern California cities with populations of more than 100,000, including Lancaster, Orange, Inglewood, Santa Clarita, Ontario and Moreno Valley.

For the full year, Orange County's two largest cities, Anaheim and Santa Ana, recorded increases in violent crime, officials said Tuesday…

The last time LAPD statistics showed the current tally of 123,700 Part I crimes (which include violent crimes, burglaries and car thefts) was in the early 1960s. On a per capita basis, the number of reported serious crimes per 10,000 people was on the level not seen since the early 1950s, according to department figures.

The question remains: why aren't more cities following Bratton's example?

Posted by Harry Siegel at 11:56 AM | Permalink


December 18, 2006

A Record Murder Rate in the City That Inspired Broken Windows Policing

Newark may be a place where crime waxes and wanes (and mostly waxes for the last 40 years), but while other cities brought in new approaches to fighting crime over the past 15 years, Newark has remained the same, which helps explains this year's spike in the murder rate, to what's likely to be a record harvest by year's end, and a per capita murder rate three times that of New York City.

The irony is that Newark is the place where Broken Windows co-author George Kelling first came to see the efficacy of foot patrols. The city's failure to participate in the policing revolution of the 1990s is a story of institutional failure over the 20-year mayoralty of Sharpe James.

That's good news in a sense: It means that new mayor Corey Booker has a golden opportunity to reshape the city and its culture of policing and orderliness, and to pick off the low-hanging fruit of easily-prevented crimes—getting guns off the street and aggressively enforcing small laws in order to weed out career criminals and restore a culture with a self-perpetuating bias toward orderly and legal behavior—gains that cities like New York accomplished years ago.

In the short run, this has almost as much to do with changing an area's culture and expectations as it does with fighting crime, a point Kelling and co-author James Q. Wilson made in the unfortunately more often referenced than read original Broken Windows essay, which opens with the following:

In the mid-l970s The State of New Jersey announced a "Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program," designed to improve the quality of community life in twenty-eight cities. As part of that program, the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats. The governor and other state officials were enthusiastic about using foot patrol as a way of cutting crime, but many police chiefs were skeptical. Foot patrol, in their eyes, had been pretty much discredited. It reduced the mobility of the police, who thus had difficulty responding to citizen calls for service, and it weakened headquarters control over patrol officers.

Many police officers also disliked foot patrol, but for different reasons: it was hard work, it kept them outside on cold, rainy nights, and it reduced their chances for making a "good pinch." In some departments, assigning officers to foot patrol had been used as a form of punishment. And academic experts on policing doubted that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates; it was, in the opinion of most, little more than a sop to public opinion. But since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to go along.

Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars.

These findings may be taken as evidence that the skeptics were right- foot patrol has no effect on crime; it merely fools the citizens into thinking that they are safer. But in our view, and in the view of the authors of the Police Foundation study (of whom Kelling was one), the citizens of Newark were not fooled at all. They knew what the foot-patrol officers were doing, they knew it was different from what motorized officers do, and they knew that having officers walk beats did in fact make their neighborhoods safer.

But how can a neighborhood be "safer" when the crime rate has not gone down--in fact, may have gone up? Finding the answer requires first that we understand what most often frightens people in public places. Many citizens, of course, are primarily frightened by crime, especially crime involving a sudden, violent attack by a stranger. This risk is very real, in Newark as in many large cities. But we tend to overlook another source of fear--the fear of being bothered by disorderly people. Not violent people, nor, necessarily, criminals, but disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people: panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed.

The full essay can be read here.

Posted by Harry Siegel at 08:59 AM | Permalink


November 13, 2006

Get Lit

As best I can tell, Forbes was the only outlet to run in full this AP dispatch on the expanded use and increasingly corporate nature of drug delivery services in New York City. It's a smart article on an interesting topic:

In a city where you can get just about anything delivered to your door - groceries, dry cleaning, Chinese food - pot smokers are increasingly ordering takeout marijuana from drug rings that operate with remarkable corporate-style attention to customer satisfaction.

An untold number of otherwise law-abiding professionals in New York are having their pot delivered to their homes instead of visiting drug dens or hanging out on street corners…

Within a couple of hours, a well-groomed delivery man - sometimes a moonlighting actor or chef - arrives at the doorstep of his Manhattan apartment carrying weed neatly packaged in small plastic containers.

"These are very nice, discreet people," said Chris, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition only his first name be used. "There's an unspoken trust. It's better than going to some street corner and getting ripped off or killed.…

"It's certainly been the trend in the past 10 years in urban areas that are becoming gentrified," said Ric Curtis, an anthropology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who specializes in the drug culture.…

Investigators seized customers' names and addresses from the drug operation's computer logs. But those people face little risk of prosecution, authorities said.

Delivery services are nothing new, and obviously it's near-impossible to measure a black market economy, but the piece reinforces my impression that the delivery market has boomed, as a result of better policing over the last 14 years, and the new, young money brought to New York by the drop in crime and the real estate boom.

The nut quote above may be "otherwise law abiding professionals." The implicit question, of course, is whether or not the police should be involved in doing much to go after delivery services don't contribute to crime—if outside of the drug sale and use itself, no further crime is created/no window is broken, it becomes a low police priority.

On the other hand, a fairness question—this in effect stipulates that middle class drug use is, if not quite decriminalized, not bothed with. And that those with less are far purused far more vigorously for the same sort of activities.

More on this here.

Posted by Harry Siegel at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)


November 07, 2006

Security Theater

You read it here first—French airport workers are meeting to today to discuss a strike in response to the pulling of security clearances necessary to work in Charles de Gaulle airport from workers alleged to have links to groups with "potentially terrorist aims." More on the fine line between pro-active policing and prosecuting thought crime in this must-read from the October Atlantic, in case you missed it. You can insert your own joke here about how the potential strike is proof that France's Muslims are in fact acculturating, as we're far too high-minded to do so.

In other airport news, WaPo has an oped in praise of behavior detection screening, and a dispatch on the informatics graduate student who posted a tool online for forging boarding passes. That his home was then raided even as the TSA denied the passes posed any threat illustrates his father's contention that "Chris was only pointing out that the government is not using its resources in a good way to provide real public safety at airports… Instead, what they're doing is probably best described as security theatre."

Posted by Harry Siegel at 12:00 PM | Permalink


November 03, 2006

Is The War on Terrorism a Humanities Problem In Search of a Policy?

Mark Riebling sends in the following dispatch:

Two new counter-terrorism controversies, in London and Paris, underscore the covalence of domestic security and immigration/border control. Both cases involve background checks for transport employees. Each raises questions that American localities must confront, but which policy analysts have been slow to address.

In London, Mohmmad Mostafa was fired from his job on the subway when it was learned that he was jailed in Yemen in 1999 for plotting to kill Western tourists. Mostafa and his father were central figures at the infamous Finsbury Park mosque; his father is serving seven years for inciting murder and preaching racial hatred during sermons there. Mostafa had previously attempted to forge a career in rap, with lyrics describing waging holy war and dying for Allah. His job gave him access to the labyrinth of tunnels in the Westminster, where the Tube runs virtually under Parliament.

The incident has provoked an outcry from Britons, who have asked, first how Mostafa could have possibly passed a background check, and, second, what he was doing in the country at all. At least three subordinate questions merit attention by those concerned with U.S. security:

1. How do we assess the veracity of convictions from countries, such as Yemen, which have weak legal systems and poor human-rights records, or which operate under Sharia (Islamic law)?

2. Is it proper to disqualify persons from employment in sensitive sectors because of their familial relations? Or do we take the position that "no one can be blamed for what their parents do”?

3. How does the use of private contractors complicate the process of background checks? A London Underground spokesman said it was up to the private contractor, and not the Underground, to make criminal checks. Is it feasible for private corporations to consult with foreign governments, to verify the criminal backgrounds of all its immigrant employees in sensitive sectors? Even if it is feasible, who is accountable? Who checks the checkers?

A similar set of questions emerges from events in Paris, where French authorities stripped 72 Muslim workers of their security clearances at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The workers lost their access badges because they had traveled to Pakistan or Afghanistan, because they were “suspected of having links to extremists,” or because they rejected “France and our values.”

The Paris case, like the London incident, raises the question of what types of personal associations are tolerable among transport workers. One airport employee was allegedly “a friend” of would be shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Another blackballed man was reputedly “close to” a senior figure in the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

The propsect of guilt-by-association hangs especially heavily over Muslims in France’s manual-labor market. Because guildlike unions make hiring and firing nearly impossible, accusing someone of ties to terrorists may be one of the few ways of getting him to actually leave his job – or, perhaps more to the point, of opening up a slot for a new employee. Unions estimate that at least a fifth of the airport’s 83,000 employees are Muslim. If so, then that is perhaps 16,000 job slots that might be prised open through conniving, jockeying, and whispering campaigns.

In both the Paris and London cases, however, localities and corporations are bearing burdens that really ought to be carried by the national government. We sholdl not leave it to a Human Resources clerk at the Transportation Security Administraiton, or at the MTA or one of its private contractors, to decide what “true Islam” is, or what type of "ties "are “suspicious,” or what tastes in rap music disquqalify an applicant for sensitive work. The proper place to address all of these pesonal-background questions is at the border -- or, better yet, abroad, at the place and time of application for entry.

Yet, comparatively little attention has been given to this issue. In their 483-page textbook on Homeland Security, James Carafano and Mark Sauer devote only two paragraphs to border control.

In Hard Won Lessons: Transit Security, the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Sahm notes: “Given their new role in the post-9/11 world, the selection of transit employees becomes even more important. Criteria for background investigations should be established, and thorough background checks should be conducted on all new frontline operations and maintenance employees.” Yet, Sahm does not say what the criteria for these investigations should be, or who should conduct the background checks.

Should we deny someone a job on the subway system, or at an airport, because someone deems him “against America and its values?” If so, that still begs the question, not only of who that someone should be, but of what is America, and, crucially, what are our values?

In other words: The War on Terrorism is, ultimately, a humanities problem. Until it is seen in that light, the underlying issue in the London and Paris cases – the proper relationship between legal immigration and domestic security -- will remain a problem in search of a policy.

Posted by Fred Siegel at 11:27 AM | Permalink


October 31, 2006

Quick Hits - Angels With Upset Stomachs

Angels' Night? Devil's Night by another name has been different in Detroit, where volunteer patrols across the city along with a curfew and a ban on gas in portable containers cut fires to 121 last year from a high of 810 in 1984. That's relative progress, I grant, but progress nonetheless. Since I'll be posting on fast food later today, I should mention that the angels are rewarded with free food from White Castle ("In Greek mythology, ambrosia is the food of gods, but angels have more discriminating tastes").

A fawning but nonetheless interesting interview with Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, a surprisingly good book from the guy until now best known for the over-hyped and uninteresting Everything Bad Is Good For You.

Businessweek compares housing booms and busts in different regions, and explains why the outlook is gloomy for Miami, Phoenix and Las Vegas. And the Adjustable Rate Mortgages that helped fuel the boom are now churning the market's depths in San Francisco.

And Cities on a Hill Editor-In-Chief Fred Siegel on France's rolling riots—"France today is a lot like New York before Rudy Giuliani. Its pitiful helpless giant of a government is so large so as to crush the economy and yet unable to stem widespread criminality. And as in New York, there is the fear that its best days are behind it."

Posted by Harry Siegel at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)


October 26, 2006

Quick Hits-Condos, Crime & Canada

Chicago's foreclosure troubles suggest a cooling market, which hasn't stopped Mayor Daley, who is gearing up for a tough election, from appointing an affordable housing taskforce that will consider, among other things, a moratorium on condominiums.

Interesting new crime maps in Chicago and D.C.

More power to Canadian cities? Ed Morgan's against it, and explains why "city power over land use has segregated rather than integrated residents."

Posted by Harry Siegel at 10:35 AM | Permalink


October 25, 2006

Even If Prisoner Exporting Catches Fire, No Smoking

California has contracted out to ship 2,000 prisoners from its stuffed-to-the-gills system to privately operated out-of-state prisons. (My favorite detail: prisoners will still be expected to follow all California prison rules, so they won't be able to smoke, for instance.)

While the program is supposed to be voluntary, it's not very attractive (prisoners can't choose which facility to transfer to, and if they have to return to California while incarcerated, say for a funeral, they have to pay their own way), and thus far only 150 have volunteered. That hasn't stopped Scott Kernan, deputy director of the prison agency's division of adult institutions, from declaring that, "I'm firmly set in my belief that it's going to catch fire, and we're going to have more inmates wanting to go than we're going to select."

Expect that 1) the program will not catch fire, 2) the state will then begin to ship inmates out involuntarily, and 3) the whole affair will end up in court.

More surreal details here, including California Corrections Secretary Jim Tilton's warning that the state will have to stop accepting inmates by next summer if it can't find more bed space.

Posted by Harry Siegel at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Quick Hits - Prisoners, Patients and Tenants

The first Cities on a Hill column has America Works founder Peter Cove weighing in on recidivism, the new battleground for the forces previously arrayed about welfare.

What to do about people with no preemptive, primary care who substitute emergency room visits when serious health problems develop? The Times takes an aproving look at a move by a few ERs to provide free primary care:

With the number of uninsured Americans reaching a record 46.6 million last year, up by 7 million from 2000, Seton is one of a small number of hospital systems around the country to have done the math and acted on it. Officials decided that for many patients with chronic diseases, it would be cheaper to provide free preventive care than to absorb the high cost of repeated emergencies.

While the article begins with the classic carefully selected victim who is "Unable to afford health insurance," between Medicaid and Medicare, the problem for most people making E.R. visits central to their health regime is life and health management, not impeded access to primary care.

Edward Glaeser weighs in on the sale of Stuy Town, and how a generations-long undoing of the free housing market in New York intended to preserve affordable housing in fact stymies its development. And a great cartoon to boot—

Posted by Harry Siegel at 07:26 AM | Permalink