The purpose of this writing is to dissect Franklin E. Zimring’s academic literature, ‘The City That Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control’. This book is about the New York City’s decline in crime and the reasons behind it. This book is broken down into three sections, consisting of eight total chapters. The main idea of this book is to draw a closer look at the major decline in crime from the 1990s to 2009. The author presented and argued about several factors that may have contributed to this drastic decline, however, it remains as an unsolved mystery. There are several factors presented in this book that aims to find the reason for the crime decline in urban New York City.
In one instance, the author noted in Chapter 3 of the text, that population redistribution may have had an impact on the crime rates. Even though some of Zimring’s theories are inconclusive, he presented data and statistics that challenges our conception of New York City as a whole. He also argued that policing may have also been responsible for the long decrease in crime through hotspots policing, targeting areas in the drug world in comparison to nationally.
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To support his arguments, he presented a plethora of statistics, facts and data collected and reported from various sources, not to mention an abundance number of graphs to visually display the statistics. This is very helpful for any reader to quickly grasp the portrayed information. When reading a book consisting of high numbers of facts and statistics, it can quickly become incomprehensible. However, the author addressed this by presenting the data through graphs and pictures. With the data presented, Professor Zimring went on to answer questions that his readers may have such as why, how, when and where. The empirical data that Zimring provided showed just how the rates of crime dropped and how it can stay like that. New York City went through drastic decline in crime rates that shows the effectiveness of the city’s policing system.
This is definitely a concise, thorough and eye-opening phenomenon, strictly academic and data driven in nature, consisted of large amounts of data to analyze. Professor Zimring’s book should serve as a ‘must- read’ for all students studying criminal justice, because of its mastery of policy analysis and reforms of crime for the past 19 years. The concepts of this book set out to show how crime dropped by 40% across the United States by exploring factors such as population change, social factors, and policing that may have played a role in the unprecedented decline. Franklin E. Zimring is an eloquent writer who divided the book into three structured sections. Within each section are chapters, where he lays out a foundation and summary of what the chapter entails. The facts presented and explained by Zimring systematically describes the unprecedented drop in crime in the four major boroughs in NYC (The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan) by presenting variables that may have been responsible, such as population density.
The first section of the book consists of chapters 1 and 2. In the very first chapter in his book, Professor Zimring lays out his first of many arguments on what sets New York City apart. New York City is one of the largest cities in the United States carrying the largest crime drop rates in the early 1990s and 2000 to 2009. The question, “How big of a drop and how long of a drop?”, was also answered by focusing on three important features of a statistical portrait: the magnitude of declining crime rates, the breadth of the drop and the length of the decline. Chapter 1 of the text explores the New York City Crime decline in the early 1990s in the urban areas of the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn (Kings County), Manhattan (New York County) and Staten Island. The author explored the decrease in crime rate by presenting his argument with substantial statistics. Zimring answered the big question early in his book that anyone will have when reading it. Throughout part one of the book, he presented statistics that needed careful and comprehensive interpretation to wrap your head around the numbers. However, he then summarized in clear, concise answers, apart from the numbers that what really sets New York City apart from other urban settings is the extent of its documented changes over a short period of time for criminal violence. New York underwent physical, economic and social structural changes which occurred from 1990 - 2009 altering the changes in crime rates, hence the decline.
The next section of the book sets out to explore the security of New York City in comparison to other cities in the United States by analyzing the comparison of crime rates and risks in current circumstances to other major cities. The author also provides a comparison of the city’s former self in the four major boroughs. “Is New York a safe city now? If so, how does its current conditions compared to other major nations such as London, Paris and Tokyo?”. Professor Zimring presented statistical data that shows that New York City is indeed safe now, if we were to compare its former delinquent self in the 1990’s. When comparing New York City to its metropolitan counterparts abroad, it has a very low crime profile.
Part 2 of Professor Zimring’s book consisted of chapter 3 to 5 showed statistical comparison of crime rates, ‘before’ and ‘after’ between two precincts: 42nd street and Canal Street where 42nd street underwent major redevelopment. The statistics showed that even though there has been a decline in the white population since the 1990s, the two races that seemed to move in this area in 2009 were Asians and Hispanics. According to Professor Zimring, in 1990 the white population were 42.1%, the black population were 27.6%, Hispanics were 23.7% and Asians were 6.6%. In 2009, the white population decreased to 33%, while the black population is 23.9%, Hispanics 27% and Asians at 11%.
Along with these changes, the police department has undergone a few drastic changes as well. Due to structure organizational changes, police man power has increased. The development of data analysis through CompStat helped officers to plan ahead to tackle crime neighborhoods. This approach to policing was also used and may have played a dominant role in crime reduction. Zimring went in depth about several factors such as immigration, economic indicators, population trends and social indicators that may have played a role in the Manhattan crime decline, not the entire NYC decline. This part of the book sets out to test the impact of the several factors mentioned above. Part 2 is an enjoyable read because it presents a statistical image of changes throughout the clustered boroughs of New York City and it shows how the population changed from 1990 - 2009. The author presented his hypothesis that population trends, economic indicators, immigration, stop and frisk and crackdown on drugs may have impacted the decline in crime. He presented ways to measure and test these hypotheses.
Furthermore, part 3 of Zimring’s studies opened with a series of unanswered questions, a priority for future research. This is a critical part section in this study because it shows that even though Professor Zimring conducted an in-depth study of the factors behind the dramatic crime decline, it shows that it is an ongoing process and there is no concrete answer specifically as to what contributed to it. Professor Zimring presented information and discussed the perceptions of crime control methods that Americans have had for decades.
Professor Zimring concludes that slight changes in the structure and characteristics of the various factors such as immigration, economic indicators, population trends, social indicators, crackdown on drug and change in police methodologies have contributed to a significant crime drop in New York City from 1990 to 2009. It is out of the scope of study pinpoint the exact reason or reasons as to why this phenomenon occurred. New York City is deemed a safe place to live because of the changes that took place. This academic literature fulfilled its purpose to educate its reader on the drastic decline of crime in the last 19 years. It definitely advanced the students of criminal justice who have read this book, if not, at least developed and advance my knowledge of the subject matter. Learning the different terms and methods of societal interactions, the economy, crime and policing is not effective if there is no understanding of the history and transformation of the society as a whole. The book accomplished its purpose sharing knowledge about crime decline in New York City by using statistical and clear language of expression, leading to an in depth understanding of the context on urban crime control.
References
- Zimring, F. E. (2014, November 5). City That Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control - Oxford Scholarship. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199844425.001.0001/acprof-9780199844425.
- Zimring, F. E. (2013). The City That Became Safe: New York's Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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