How faculty lounge ideologues attacked Big Apple's dip in murder rate

Yahoo

24-03-2025

By the mid-1990s, a thousand butts were being covered in the faculty lounges of America.
Sociologists and criminologists were impotently dissing the miraculous plunge in crime and murder in New York, America's largest and most storied city.
Starting around 1967, the murder rate in the Big Apple began soaring from 746 that year to a terrifying 2,245 in 1990. During that period, New York also suffered a bleed-out of blue-collar jobs, white flight and a drug epidemic.
The problems plaguing New York weren't worse than many other American cities, but the Big Apple became the poster boy for crime and urban decay because of its size and the glare of the media.
'There was a 50% reduction in murders. Sociologists and criminologists in academia were saying 'it's not happening,' author Peter Moskos told the Toronto Sun. ''Who knows what's causing it?' they said. All the 'experts' in the field were wrong.'
Moskos — a criminology professor at John Jay College in New York — has written a new book that boasts a rave review from author David Simon, whose works spawned the hit TV series Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire, no less. The book is called Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York's Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop.
What Moskos — who lives in my old Astoria stomping grounds — did was talk to cops who were there. But the average faculty lounge criminologist does not talk to cops, typically doesn't like cops and is firmly ensconced in an ivory tower with faddish ideas
Instead, they posited that the criminals aged out, Roe v. Wade meant fewer unwanted kids coming into the world ready for mayhem, leaded gasoline was banned and suggested we, uh, look at 'root causes.'
'It was the cops,' Moskos said. 'The other things played a role, sure, but mostly it was policing.'
In his book, Moskos tells the tales from the front lines and explores the strategies the NYPD used in their war against crime and how cops gave New Yorkers their city back. The book is out Wednesday.
Unlike many academics who study crime and policing, Moskos put his money where his mouth is: While doing his PhD, he joined Baltimore Police for a birds-eye view. And because of his blue bona fides, police officers would talk to him, whereas they remained rightly suspicious of the faculty lounge types.
Even as murders and crime in general began tumbling in the Big Apple, Moskos' criminology colleagues remained in disbelief. They were wedded to an ideology that remains prevalent in those circles today.
'For starters, they generally don't like cops and they didn't want to give the police any credit,' he said.
Still, Moskos said the NYPD benefited from the ebbing of the crack epidemic that ravaged big North American cities in the 1980s and early 1990s. The dealers and users were either in prison or the morgue.
The NYPD itself was handcuffed by its inertia. There was little accountability even as the bodies began stacking sky high.
That is until the arrival of Jack Maple and William Bratton. Maple had been a subway cop riding the rails and was somewhat of an idiot savant when it came to crime. As commissioner of New York's transit police, Bratton saw a diamond in the rough.
Crime fell first on the subway system and then Bratton became NYPD commissioner and brought Maple along for the ride.
'There was little accountability and they demanded it. They cleaned house. Then everything changed,' he said, adding that the NYPD became very good at problem-solving. 'Only sociologists were still saying that the police didn't matter … but they couldn't explain the crime drop away.'
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Like the cops themselves, Moskos said sociologists and criminologists were privileged, believing they were different.
'But they weren't on the streets seeing what was happening … and sometimes their views were offensive, even though data was disputing their ideas,' he added. 'They did not like the conclusion, which was you can police your way out of something like this.
'The adults took charge.'
Moskos said he doesn't intend his book to be an ode to Bill Bratton, America's most celebrated cop who not only cleaned up New York, but Los Angeles as well.
But Moskos fears there are signs that some of the problems with the cops and the city itself are again plaguing the NYPD. He blames uber-progressive former mayor Bill DeBlasio, whose disdain for the police is well-known.
'Bratton got rid of a lot of the corruption, but now it's back. After the turnaround, police were getting in people's s— which is how you cut crime. Under DeBlasio, the streets were surrendered,' he said.
Now, New York has what Moskos calls the Taj Mahal of homeless shelters, packed with illegal immigrants, many of them Venezuelan gangbangers.
'They (the NYPD) are not supposed to enforce that and so you're again seeing a drop in the quality of life,' he said, adding the subways are again dangerous. 'They gave up enforcing the rules on fare evasion and bail reform is a big problem. New York gave up a decade of progress.'
Moskos has some advice for other cities like, say, Toronto if they want to eliminate crime.
'Don't let the ideologues have a seat at the table,' he said. 'These are people who want to destroy policing at all costs, most are in the pro-criminal direction.'
Canada knows this all too well.
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