Back from the Brink: Inside the NYPD and New York City's Extraordinary 1990s Crime Drop

With crime of heightened concern in the country's largest cities, Peter Moskos brings readers behind the Blue Wall of the NYPD, offering insight into policing solutions directly from the law enforcement officers who went to war against crime in New York in the 1990s, and won. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, New York City was seen, justifiably, as out of control.The city approached bankruptcy, the subways were covered with graffiti, and murders were at a record high.Right-wing fearmongering and vigilante justice were countered by liberal pleas to end poverty and provide drug treatment--none of which happened.Then, in a surprising break from the past, new NYPD leadership decided to focus on crime.Between 1993 and 1996, New York City's murder numbers were cut in half, dropping to under 1,000 for the first time in decades.Eventually New York City would have fewer than 300 murders, fewer than Chicago, with one-third the population.Fewer than Baltimore, even, with one-fifteenth the popula