Side story on the recent gun spree

[Firn]

Firn,
But security is little more than making the situation more secure or uncomfortable enough that the problem simply moves on to someone else's backyard. In rural USA, that may only equate to shifting the thugs several hundred yards into an adjacent neighborhood where the same local law enforcement will still have to deal with the very same problem. No ?

Their goods may end up being more expensive, but we still did not get rid of them.

Why not just terminate the problem where it grew roots instead of sending them into the neighbor's yard ?

Well I just highlighted the not so obvious and intuitive effects of that NY policy referred to in the NYT. The police did of course often not just take a look around as cruising only along would have hardly made a big impact on the behaviour in this criminal market place. Beside specific missions the (in)famous stop-and-frisk was seemingly especially often adopted around such hot spots.

Wiki:

The stop-and-frisk program of New York City is a practice of the New York City Police Department by which a police officer who reasonably suspects a person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor, stops and questions that person, and, if the officer reasonably suspects he or she is in danger of physical injury, frisks the person stopped for weapons. The rules for stop and frisk are found in New York State Criminal Procedure Law section 140.50, and are based on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio[1][2] About 684,000 people were stopped in 2011.[1][3][4] New York residents have questioned whether these stops are based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.[5] According to NYPD statistics, almost one in five stopped were guilty of a crime.[3] The vast majority of these people were African-American or Latino.[1][3][4]

From a criminal's point of view such activities can be of course more then a hassle, as you could be stopped with a decent probability, possibly while 'just' carrying some illegal stuff or having an outstanding warrant without doing anything 'wrong'.

In the end it is all about the opportunity costs and the specific circumstances. In a world where the criminal markets places are 'sticky' - shift not easily - and suffer a considerable drop in efficiency when disturbed such a policy could be up to a point more effective at curbing crime then the same relative amount of police routine.

P.S: Just read that piece in the Guardian...

Lieberman says that in 2010 she noted a disproportionate concentration of NYPD stop-and-frisks among young men of color: "African American and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24 are 7.2% of the population and 41% of police stop-and-frisks."

Patrick Jones, a 25 year-old African American living in the Bronx, was first stopped by the police at age 12 while hanging out near an NYPD precinct. At the time motorcycles were being stolen out of a police garage, and officers accused Jones of the crime. He was handcuffed, taken to the precinct, questioned and released without charge.

Jones has dealt with police stop-and-frisks ever since. Many of those encounters, he says, have resulted in beatings.

When asked what age stop-and-frisks tend to begin for residents of his neighborhood Jones was frank, "Soon as you're able to go outside on your own. It doesn't matter how old you are."

Jones says young people in his area are targeted for little more than their appearance. "We're kids from the hood. We dress a certain way. We have certain things that we do, so we all look like criminals to them."

"Sometimes they just sweep people," he explained. "There are a bunch of people just standing somewhere; sweep. Somebody's gotta have something. Nine times out of ten they're right."