The other contention made is that Republicans would lower crime. Here too the evidence is scant.
Landlord, property owner near police shooting talks crime in Milwaukee
Landlord and nearby property owner near, Kyana Myles talks about the police shooting and discusses the increase in crime in Milwaukee
- Crime rates fell nationally during both Giuliani and Bloomberg’s mayoral terms, coinciding with a booming economy and other factors.
- While Giuliani’s policies did reduce crime in NYC, they also involved displacing the poor to other areas rather than addressing root causes.
- Bloomberg, while tough on crime, also implemented social programs like affordable housing, contributing to crime reduction.
- Wisconsin’s high Black incarceration rate demonstrates that simply jailing more people does not necessarily lead to lower crime rates.
A recent letter to the editor asserted “Crime-ridden Democrat cities like Milwaukee should adopt the Giuliani model” to lower crime. Milwaukee’s crime rate is high and candid conversations are required on how to lower it. The letter further notes, “I can only think of one Democrat that followed the Giuliani model, and that was former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Crime dropped further.”
First, did Rudolf Giuliani’s policies as mayor of NYC from 1994-2001 reduce crime? Yes. Crime dropped nationally and New York City during Giuliani and Bloomberg’s mayoral terms.
Additional context is important. Giuliani governed under Bill Clinton’s presidency in which the economy boomed, and nowhere more than in finance. Torrents of cash poured into Wall Street and New York, returning the city to its former glory with one of the highest per capita rates of rich people in the world. This influx of wealth no doubt buoyed NYC’s fortunes at a time of both local and national falling crime rates.
Giuliani also found ways to remove the poor from New York’s city center. His policies pushed them to outer boroughs and other cities such as neighboring Newark, New Jersey and even as far as Philadelphia. Thus, actions in part fixed the problem by exporting it to other locations rather than solving the underlying issues causing poverty and crime.
Giuliani pushed poor out, Bloomberg built affordable housing
The economic boom continued under much of Mike Bloomberg’s term that followed Giuliani. Bloomberg also took a tough line on crime. But he was also a social liberal. Among his many actions was to significantly increase property taxes, thus funding the construction of some 160,000 affordable housing units in the city. Thus, of the two mayoral figures, Bloomberg was more successful at reducing crime rather than merely exporting it to other locations.
Furthermore, this time of dropping crime rates nationally coincided with the first generation of first unwanted children not born due to the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court ruling. One can debate the morality of abortion, but the fact remains, Roe reduced the number of children that would have been born to parent(s) either not wanting, or being unprepared, for them that would disproportionately mature into environments more prone to crime. One Stanford University academic publication put the impact of Roe vs Wade on crime reduction in the period when Giuliani and Bloomberg governed at 47%.
The writer also advocated New York’s implementation of “broken window theory” policing which posits that degraded environments, e.g., broken windows on cars parked left unrepaired on streets, etc.” contributes to anti-social behavior. There is evidence demonstrating this connection.
Related is the idea that misdemeanor crimes left unpunished lead to more serious crimes. Here the evidence is tenuous, but not baseless. These theories have their own costs, e.g., larger expenditures for neighborhood clean-up and bigger police budgets, thus higher taxes. There is also the risk of racial profiling.
That said, the merits of these policies should be discussed and studied. Law abiding citizens in high-crime areas deserve protection and the freedom to live unmolested by crime, but also from abuses of select police officers abusing their authority, of which these two goals can conflict.
Wisconsin has highest rate of Black incarceration in country
The presumption of some Wisconsinites advocating implementation of the broken windows theory is the need to jail more criminals, which means disproportionately urban poor Blacks. But here’s the rub. Wisconsin already holds the dubious distinction of jailing more Black people per capita than any other state. Nationally, the U.S. jails 1 in 81 Blacks. Wisconsin jails 1 in 36 (over twice the national average).
Despite, this massive incarceration rate of Blacks, rather than having the nation’s lowest crime, Wisconsin is 28th. In fact, Wisconsin jails some 2,250 per 100,000 Black adults, which exceeds the highest general incarceration rate of any of the world’s 223 countries measured, in this case El Salvador’s 1,659 per 100,000. Thus, we already see that jailing more people, with Wisconsin holding the number one position, fails to produce comparatively lower crime rates.
The other contention made is that Republicans would lower crime. Here too the evidence is scant. Of the country’s 10 highest violent crime states, 7 are governed by the GOP. These states are among the poorest where its rural white populations are disproportionately poor and have their own resulting cultural pathologies with rampant use of meth, fentanyl, single parent households, gun violence, etc.
In short, differing policies and political programs matter. But it is simplistic to assume the complex socio-economic and historic factors that led to our high crime rates can be changed by a mere switching out of political wardrobes. Jailing more people alone does not solve the problem. Letting criminals run loose also isn’t the answer. Personal responsibility is required, but so is social responsibility.
The fixes to these problems aren’t cheap but also pay off if done right in creating safer and more stable communities. The U.S. previously created a broad social agenda helping Americans of all backgrounds. This was under the policies of the New Deal that saw workers benefiting more from their labor thus giving them a stake in society. While the New Deal was imperfect, it created conditions for prosperity that even overcame the sometimes still racist policies embedded within the New Deal itself.
Jeffrey Sommers is professor of political economy and public policy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is past (and upcoming) chair of the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies.
