When it comes to effective policing, New York is very much a victim of its own success.
After more than a quarter-century of declining street crime — and more than two decades since the attacks of September 11, 2001 — relative peace has left many New Yorkers unwilling to return to the often aggressive policing approaches once used to keep the city safe.
And so nearly a decade after former Mayor Bill DeBlasio committed the NYPD to less-proactive law enforcement strategies, the city’s police force is operating at half-speed.
But last week’s terror in Israel demonstrates why complacency is not just unwise, it can also be deadly.
Few things are more jarring than realizing that a city is woefully unprepared for—if not extremely vulnerable to— an attack that no longer seems as remote as it did just days ago.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post
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Rafael Mangual is the Nick Ohnell Fellow and head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is also the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most.
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