http://nypost.com/2015/01/09/nypd-slowdown-costing-the-city-10m-a-week-in-revenue/
This is very interesting. On one hand it shows that crime has not taken over the city, and it may lead to better relations between cops and citizens. On the other hand, the city cannot afford to lose this much money for much longer. Ultimately, it may lead to layoffs of much needed personnel.
I have the solution to this stand off. The police deny they’re engaging in an illegal work slow down. Clearly we shouldn’t doubt New York’s finest, so the Mayor should accept the police officers’ word. However since levels of crime have dropped so quickly, there is obviously no need to pay overtime to any police officer, right? :>
There’s no need for so many policemen. I think NYPD is something like 35,000 policemen. They can examine what the new numbers should be based on this. Maybe a 25% cut?
Less arrests doesn’t translate into less crime occurring. What an odd concept.
May be, but there’s no crime wave in the streets. It’s not the 1970s anymore. I lived through the bad old days, and it’s a totally different NYC.
Where did anyone say that^^^^^?
What it does show is crime has not increased because of fewer arrests. Many of the tickets that had been written were for petty offenses, and some of it was down right harassment, a la “stop and frisk”.
It doesn’t show that either. We don’t have an independent way of measuring crime in the short term other than arrests.
If major crime had increased because of the slowdown, trust me, folks would be screaming. Frankly, it has not. This slowdown, is entering the third week which is long enough to show that some of the “policing” was unncessary.
Just decrease the NYPD budget by the amount of the revenue shortfalls.
Yes, if my neighborhood is not victimized by a major crime in the next 3 weeks we can just do away with the local police force. And, nevermind those petty criminals. Who cares? 
I don’t have a position on whether some of the policing was unnecessary. But I do have a position on this particular argument for less policing-- it’s nonsense.
Sorry, I don’t trust you on this and neither should anyone else. If major crime had increased 10-20%, you wouldn’t be able to notice it in this short time frame. Three weeks is certainly not enough to show whether some of this policing was unnecessary. Major crimes are rare enough that there will naturally be random fluctuations in the rate, in addition to other fluctuations not related to the amount of policing.
Moreover, criminals, like everyone else, respond to incentives, but in most cases when people respond to incentives, there’s a lag time, and that lag time is going to be a lot longer than three weeks. So, in summary, we don’t know whether major crime has increased, and if it hasn’t increased in this short time, that is nevertheless not a reason to believe that it wouldn’t increase if the slowdown was continued.
Well I am sure folks are happy not to be stopped and frisked, ticketed for jaywalking, and minor things of that nature.
For the umpteenth time, my post did not address major crimes. I said crime had not taken over the city in my initial thread. Also based on ths and other news articles, this slow down has only affected minor offenses, parking tix, turnstile jumping, etc. I havent read that cops were not arresting for major infractions. So my opinion is still, that maybe cops should be worried about the big stuff, and by not harassing some citizens over the small stuff, they may actually improve community relations. Also, I am sure the police union would be sounding the alarms, and publishing stats if that were the case. Their very vocal president would definitely put that out. They are only hurting themselves by this slowdown, as it has already been reported, they are clamping down on their vacations until they get the numbers up.