The city that became safe: New York's lessons for urban crime and its control

The 1990s witnessed a large decrease in crime in almost all major US cities. However, while crime rates levelled off in most cities, the decrease continued in New York City throughout the 2000s. From 1990 to 2009, the homicide rate in New York City fell by 76%; the robbery rate fell by 81%, the burglary rate by 85% and the auto theft rate by 93%. 'The size and the length of the decline are without precedent in the recorded history of American urban crime' (p. 1).

In a previous book, The Great American Crime Decline, legal scholar and criminal justice expert, Franklin Zimring, examined the broad crime decline of the 1990s and concluded that the cause remains largely a mystery. In his new book, The City that Became Safe, Zimring analyses the reasons for the continued decline in crime rates in New York City in the 2000s.

He concludes that the usual suspects-changes in demographics, reduction in drug use, increase in the size of the police force and increase in incarceration-cannot explain any of these successes witnessed in New York. Indeed, during...