ZT...ZERO TOLERANCE AND ZOOMING TOURISM

Crime's down again ... but could it drop even more if we followed New
York's example?

GIVE criminals an inch and they will take a mile that's the philosophy
behind New York's staggeringly successful zero tolerance campaign.

In 1991, when the city's murder rate hit its peak, there were six killings
a day and more than 2,200 in the year. Commuters cowered in their cars as
menacing beggars ran filthy cloths over windscreens and demanded money.

Times Square, the heart of the city, was clogged with pimps, prostitutes,
thugs and crack cocaine addicts. Tourists were warned not to walk around at
night.

The streets seethed with violence while police officers were discouraged
from making arrests for minor crimes and forbidden from taking drug dealers
into custody for fear that, being so poorly paid, they would fall victim to
bribery.

The city had surrendered to crime and an annual increase in rape, murder
and robbery was thought inevitable.

Those who advocate zero tolerance say New York had given its criminals an
inch, then a mile. They said felons were just a few years away from taking
over the whole city which, in 1992, was ranked the second most dangerous in
America behind Philadelphia. Police said their orders to stay in cars and
respond only to major crimes in progress made them feel powerless.

Now New York is not even in the top 100 most dangerous cities in America.
There are 137 which have a higher murder rate. This year there will
probably be fewer than 600 murders for the first time since 1967.

Police officers are highly visible, standing on almost every street
corner, ready to stop even the most trivial crimes.

Times Square is now crowded with families until midnight. Graffiti artists
are an endangered species and most of this has been achieved by the most
aggressive zero tolerance policing in the U.S.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his first Police Commissioner William
Bratton ordered his officers to begin arresting people for minor quality of
life crimes. He said increasing crime was only inevitable if honest
citizens allowed it to be.

Begging, unwanted car windscreen cleaning, drinking on the street,
prostitution,disorderly conduct, riding the subway without a ticket,
graffiti spraying, driving with broken brake lights and crossing the street
at the wrong place or time all became targets.

The Mayor's goal was to restore public order. And the results have stunned
everybody.

People stopped for minor offences were often found to have outstanding
arrest warrants or had firearms on their person or in their car. Detectives
were encouraged to interrogate all those arrested about a wide range of
crimes. In the first five years, arrests for minor offences led to
convictions on much more serious charges in over 60 per cent of cases and
took more than 25,000 guns off the streets.

The public suddenly knew the police were there and were no longer afraid to
take on the criminals. Now officers are far more committed to fighting
crime, but also much more has been demanded from them.

Paperwork was reduced, but the number of arrests each officer is expected
to make sharply increased.

Every week senior officers must attend meetings at police HQ where the
crime statistics are examined. Any officer with an increase in his area
must explain why and describe what remedies he intends to apply. If his
numbers don't improve he can expect these meetings to become a humiliating
experience.

Zero tolerance extends to police incompetence and like every part of the
strategy is brutally simple officers are expected to stop crime. If they
don't, they must explain why not. If they can't, they had better look for a
different job.

Despite the extra pressures, police officers say they feel like
professionals again with real challenges and a realistic chance of meeting
their goals.

One narcotics detective in what was once a killing field in a Bronx public
housing project says there are now flowers in gardens and babies being
pushed by relaxed mothers.

He credits the change to his ability to pursue criminals aggressively and
that the territory no longer belongs to the drug dealers, who know their
chances of being caught are ten times higher than a decade ago.

Hundred of millions of extra dollars have been devoted to policing.
Salaries have risen, sharply diminishing the risk of corruption, and 5,000
more officers have been hired. Expert teams have been formed to fight crime
as if it were an invading army.

Whenever an area sees a persistent increase in criminal activity for
example, robberies or prostitution or drugs one of eight city-wide floating
battalions of special officers is dispatched.

Other cities have adopted New York's example and experts claim the cities
closest to its model have achieved the best results. Places like Washington
DC, so far from ZT that its mayor, Marion Barry, is himself a former drug
felon, are still suffering from rising crime and have yet to attack the
basic acts of public disorder which breed criminals.

There is some evidence that New York's tough policy has forced criminals
elsewhere and increased crime in smaller towns, but that is a poor argument
for restraining its aggressive attack.

Now the streets are teeming with visitors from small-town America who once
would have been afraid to venture into Manhattan without an armed guard.
Tourist numbers have more than doubled since 1994. They have come not just
because headline-grabbing murders are down, but because few visitors these
days witness any kind of crime.

Over the five years, ZT has cut armed robberies by 47 per cent, cash
machine muggings by 56 per cent, assaults by 41 per cent, and car theft by
49 per cent.

These tourists return home, see local crime rising, and ask why their
cities can't be more like New York, an unthinkable scenario a decade ago.
The answer is, say ZT practitioners, that they can if they follow simple
rules.

Tolerating minor crimes leads to major ones, tolerating simple assaults
leads to more murders and, above all, never let the criminals get any kind
of grip on your neighbourhood through graffiti, begging or public
drunkenness.

Then, so long as your police officers don't mind hard work, you can achieve
what New York has one of the safest big cities in the world with new
investments worth billions flooding in as the criminals are forced out.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)