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Back from the brink : inside the NYPD and New York City's extraordinary 1990s crime drop / Peter Moskos.

Oxford Scholarship Online: Sociology Available online

View online
Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Moskos, Peter, 1971- author.
Series:
Oxford scholarship online.
Oxford scholarship online
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
New York (N.Y.). Police Department--History--20th century.
New York (N.Y.).
Crime--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
Crime.
Police--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
Police.
Law enforcement--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
Law enforcement.
Police crackdowns--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.
Police crackdowns.
New York (N.Y.)--History--1951-.
New York (N.Y.)--Social conditions--20th century.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (313 pages)
Edition:
First edition.
Place of Publication:
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2025]
Summary:
In New York during the 1980s and early 1990s crime was seen, justifiably, as out of control. Then, between 1993 and 1996, New York City's murder rate decreased by 50%. 'Back from the Brink' is an unofficial police history and narrative of the people and events that made New York City the safest big city in America. Peter Moskos, a sociologist and former police officer, takes readers behind the Blue Wall of the NYPD, offering insight into effective law enforcement directly from the police officers who went to war against crime in New York in the 1990s, and won.
Contents:
cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1 Drop Dead (1970s)
It was mostly a working-class neighborhood
The cops who got laid off were never the same
It was important to save the city
We always seem to resist change
Crime wasn't addressed in a systematic way
The lights are out in the city
2 Crack, Community Policing, and Crown Heights (1980-1993)
Cops decide to take the steps of City Hall
Headquarters didn't want to know a thing
Community policing
It was very, very dangerous
You could make money by making arrests
The real thing was to avoid scandal
Safe Streets Safe City
Crown Heights
The Democratic National Convention
3 NYC Transit Policing and Safer Subway (1984-1995)
Graffiti was an interesting educational experience
We can eject people
You're going to do anything to survive
People would complain about the quality of life
Overtime through the roof
The advocates hit us hard
We begin applying Broken Windows
Now we've joined the real police
4 Miracles on 42nd Street (1990s)
Signal the all-clear for mayhem
We took Bryant Park over
The Port Authority offered me a job
Operation Alternative
Times Square was filthy and run-down
There is a tendency to romanticize the gutter
5 Bratton's Transition (1994)
Crime and disorder were going to be Giuliani's issues
We want to bring down crime dramatically
The story of the squeegees
The Dirty Thirty
Fight crime, fear of crime, and disorder
Does anybody know how many shootings there are?
Simple solutions involve an enormous amount of training
6 Compstat: Accurate Timely Intelligence (1994-1996)
It was clunky in the beginning
Compstat was born
The chief of patrol does not divide by zero
Crime fell off the table
Total accountability.
It changed the culture of the organization
Don't tell me how hard it is!
You had to be a tough guy to do it
7 Rapid Deployment and Effective Tactics (1994-1996)
Go out and be cops!
You're going to have bad incidents
I worked fourteen hours a day
I wanted to be an undercover FBI agent
You have to do that to move up the food chain
The Broken Windows theory was fundamentally misunderstood
The crack vials would crunch under your feet
When you go federal, their whole demeanor changes
I had guys that cooperated and did five murders
After we took out one gang, we're on to the next
Zero tolerance creates a form of zealotry
8 Follow-Up and Assessment (1996-2000)
Are we really fired?
Good strategies and a lot of hard work
The Camelot years of NYPD
The trick is constant enforcement
``The job sucks'' again
A thousand homicides? Impossible
Postscript
Glossary
Methods
Notes
Bibliography
Index.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on January 10, 2025).
ISBN:
9780197797808
0197797806
9780197797785
0197797784
OCLC:
1483841561

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