http://www.nysun.com/article/7004
Geoffrey Gray
"When there were reports of recession years ago and Mayor Giuliani bragged about bringing the crime rate down, criminologists predicted it would begin to rise. When the New York Police Department's 40,000-strong force was cut by a few thousand officers for budget reasons, and then diluted by the establishment of anti-terrorism commands after September 11, again the experts predicted crime would rise.
The predictions have proved wrong. After nearly three calendar years and countless overtime hours for its now - 35,512 officers, the Police Department under Commissioner Raymond Kelly has seen the number of major felonies continue to drop, year after year after year - even in troubled areas.
Crime figures, however, tell only part of the success story.
Despite the department's ability to respond to crimes quicker and manage itself better, experts said the continuous dips over the last three years also resulted from New Yorkers' greater sophistication in policing themselves. New York students of criminal justice also said that ironically the biggest critics of the Police Department's ability to defy predictions and keep crime down are the police officers themselves, who complain about morale issues as they continue to fight for better salaries. 'The only ones who don't benefit from crime reduction are the bad guys and the cops,' Eli Silverman, professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said."
