Crime Control in New York: Two Strategies

Abstract

The New York City police continue to be confronted by the double helix of severe resource limitations and expanding levels of violent felony crime. The force is one-quarter smaller now than in 1975. In light of this dramatic shrinkage, it is not surprising that the FBI's index of major felony crime shows that in 1981 New York ranked twelfth on the list of major American cities, up from eighteenth in 1975, and, with respect to the crime of robbery, New York was third in 1981, up from fourth in 1975.1 And yet, there are almost twice as many convicts in New York State prisons now than there were ten years ago.2 Indeed, not only are our jails occupied to the absolute limit of their capacity, but every agency of our criminal justice system is strained to the margin of its resources. During the last two years, for example, our prosecutors have increased the felony indictment rate by almost thirty percent.3 But the volume of crime continues to outpace the capacity of the system to deal with it. In this maelstrom of institutional crisis, the huge preponderance (seventy-eight percent) of felony arrests made by police erode to misdemeanors or are dismissed outright in the arraignment and pre-indictment process. In the face of this awful and tragic dilemma the police have adopted two crime control stategies. One approach seeks to augment arrest cases of career criminals. The other strategy seeks to stabilize neighborhoods with crime deterring patrols. In 1979 the New York police and District Attorneys undertook the design, testing and implementation of felony augmentation programs.