http://www.npr.org/2012/01/03/144627...g-held-beliefs

And I give a lot of the credit to the police, who were focused on the changing of behavior because we have finally come to appreciate that crime is not caused by, but influenced by, the economy sometimes, by the weather sometimes, by demographics sometimes, by poverty, by racism. Those are influences which for 30 years criminologists, academics and politicians told us that they were the causes of crime.

The cause of crime is quite simple: It's human beings who decide intentionally to commit a crime, criminals, or many others who get caught up in the moment of passion under the inducement of alcohol or drugs and commit crimes. That's what police exist for, to control behavior.
Break

New York City is the principal feeder of the New York state prison system. New York state is, in fact, closing prisons because the prison population has declined. Effectively, it goes back to my point again about the emphasis on police changing behavior, controlling behavior to such an extent you change it.

We are going to be tested in the next several years as a large part of that prison population is being accelerated out of prison because of budget issues, et cetera, and coming back into an environment where, in many cases, they're not going to be under supervision of parole agents or probation agents.
David, this is your area of expertise, but as you know I'm a strong opponent of the poverty theory which now is seriously being challenged with statistics and in my view it has been disproven. A contributing factor yes, but not the cause.

It is a behavior choice, and a choice that can and has been influenced by the actions of the police and community at large. I think we would be remiss not to give police departments that are learning organizations credit where it is due. Obviously good policing isn't the only factor, but I suspect those other factors will at best remain hypothetical and different for each city. I also suspect that the level of crime will increase and decrease over time due to various factors. Some things I would like to see considered are:

- Demographic trends: what has changed from the peak crime time frame to the low crime time frame in age, gender, race, economic status, etc.? This could lend support or a challenge to the birth control/legalized abortion theory.

- Gang distribution/competition: have the gangs come to agreement on turf and what part of the black economy they control? Seems to me from outside observer perspective that much of the violence in high crime areas is competition for control. For example, the violence in parts of Iraq was reduced after one ethnic group was largely forced out of an area.

- Increase or decrease in funding for: police, drug rehabilition, mental hospitals, prison system, etc.

- The impact of our education system on the kids (perhaps installing values in the inner city where some families that are families in name only, do not).

Enforcement is one thing, but it is a crying shame that up to 1% of our populace is locked up at anyone time. We need to take a hard look at ourselves and figure out what is going on.