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Comment by krschultz | Hacker News Reader

The truth of the matter is that we don't know why crime dropped over the last 30ish years. There are lots of theories, broken windows policing is just one of them.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/11/24/10-not-entirel...

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The idea of tough, aggressive policing in New York has a lot of cultural momentum that will be hard to reverse. Despite the impression that Internet media subcultures try to create, New York is not united against police harassment. This is why de Blasio & co are being extremely careful to not politicize that incident where two policemen were randomly executed; and why the police union is doing its best to do the opposite. They are fighting for the "support the police" crowd.

The reason for this cultural momentum is because it wasn't too long ago that Manhattan was overrun with open drug use, open solicitation of prostitution, three-card-monte scammers, squeegee men, and so on. Central Park was dangerous after dark (and somewhat so even during the day). This is a particular sort of crime that we can imagine is solved by tough policing--and in the judgment of many people, this is exactly what happened.

I can't tell if you're disassociating yourself from the "many people" you mentioned or not, so I'm not sure how to word this, but... Just out of curiosity (because you seem like you have first-hand experience of the old NYC) What do you believe has had the most impact on decreasing crime in NYC? And what do you believe is the best solution going forward?

Here in Vancouver, police appear to be fairly hands-off (of course this is coming from a white male perspective, and I don't know enough black people here to have an idea of how different their experience is).

And while we have a lot of drug activity, homelessness, streetwalking, etc. I believe there is a lower rate of violent/organized crime than NYC.

Of course, Canadians have a much different attitude towards gun ownership than Americans...

Manhattan is pretty safe. People walk in the central park pretty late in the night (9-11pm) because there are (were) police patrol in it.

Police patrol != enforcement. Having relaxed police in the vicinity makes me feel safer, having police nearby that is just looking for minor infractions makes me feel less secure - and I'm privileged white.

> Of course, Canadians have a much different attitude towards gun ownership than Americans...

That must be why Surrey had more homicides than Seattle in 2013, despite being a couple hundred thousand people smaller, and shall-issue CCW in Seattle.

Maybe, just maybe, something else is involved.

Great, but you've just picked one of Canada's most violent cities and compared it to an arbitrary American city, which is also relatively safe.

By the way, the Canadian city with the highest murder rate (Red Deer, with a murder rate of 6.4 http://www.macleans.ca/worst-cities/) has a lower murder rate than nearly every city on this list of American cities by crime statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...)

I think the point is that guns laws and attitudes don't paint the whole picture.

You have a city in an extremely gun-tolerant state (Washington) that has lower violent crime than a city in an extremely anti-gun area (Surrey).

This suggests at least that low crime with liberal gun ownership laws is possible, and also suggests that gun ownership is not a primary factor in determining the level of violent crime.

Those are just two cities. Saying an incredibly safe city in a 'gun-tolerant' state (though I'm pretty sure it's not particularly gun-tolerant in attitude compared to the southern U.S.) is safer than one of the more dangerous cities of a gun-intolerant countries doesn't prove anything. Those are just two data points in a much more complicated graph. Overall Canada is much safer than the U.S. That doesn't mean every city in Canada is safer than every city in the U.S. However, guns are much harder to get in Canada, and that is believed by many to be a main contributing factor to it's lower rates of gun crime

Link to proof for Surrey crime stats/Seattle crime stats?

Seattle: http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/13_Stats/2013_Major_Crim...

Surrey's was obtained from this article: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Surrey+murders+four+days+ho...

Of course, Canadians have a much different attitude towards gun ownership than Americans...

I doubt our attitudes differ much with respect to violent criminals using guns (or knives or fists) to hurt people, as we are talking about here.

Attitudes on gun ownership by peaceable citizens may be another story.

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