WEBVTT - The Tipping Point Revisited: Broken Windows 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.756 Pushkin. What did it mean to go out on a 0:00:21.796 --> 0:00:26.516 Saturday or Friday night in nineteen ninety three in New York. 0:00:29.156 --> 0:00:30.436 It was kind of like a given. 0:00:30.716 --> 0:00:34.396 You know, you wear a fanny pack and once you 0:00:34.436 --> 0:00:36.236 are on the streets, you turn it around so it's 0:00:36.236 --> 0:00:36.756 in front of. 0:00:36.716 --> 0:00:37.636 You so you can see it. 0:00:37.716 --> 0:00:38.716 Did you really do that? 0:00:39.236 --> 0:00:39.996 Absolutely? 0:00:40.236 --> 0:00:40.396 Well? 0:00:40.436 --> 0:00:43.516 I actually I did interrupt, but I remember I just 0:00:43.596 --> 0:00:46.196 had a flash of remember keys. We all had. 0:00:46.116 --> 0:00:50.356 Keys, and I used to around with keys. 0:00:49.876 --> 0:00:52.356 So that each one. What would I have actually done 0:00:52.396 --> 0:00:54.716 if someone had attacked me? I would put my keys 0:00:54.756 --> 0:00:56.116 between my fingers. 0:00:56.396 --> 0:01:00.316 Yeah, so that someone atactly I was ready. Not long ago, 0:01:00.716 --> 0:01:02.676 I called up two friends so I used to hang 0:01:02.716 --> 0:01:04.636 out with when I first moved to New York City 0:01:04.916 --> 0:01:09.916 in my twenties, Peggy and Erica. Back in the nineties, 0:01:10.156 --> 0:01:15.556 we were all young and footloose and on edge. I 0:01:15.596 --> 0:01:19.276 seem to remember that at the end of every evening 0:01:19.356 --> 0:01:22.356 there was a discussion about everyone had to We all 0:01:22.396 --> 0:01:24.796 had to talk about everyone's plan for getting home. Do 0:01:24.876 --> 0:01:27.756 you remember this? And if you didn't, who did? And 0:01:27.836 --> 0:01:32.796 didn't have money for a cab? Did anyone under what 0:01:32.836 --> 0:01:36.636 circumstances would you take the subway on a Friday night after. 0:01:37.916 --> 0:01:39.876 Dinner if you were in a large group. 0:01:39.996 --> 0:01:41.556 Only if you're in a large group, a large group. 0:01:41.436 --> 0:01:43.956 And it was like a little adventure. So six people 0:01:43.996 --> 0:01:45.956 would all get on the subway late at night, and 0:01:46.116 --> 0:01:48.836 you felt like you were being adventurous. 0:01:49.156 --> 0:01:52.436 Yeah, thinking back on it, it felt very collegial. 0:01:52.516 --> 0:01:54.116 We did things as a group. 0:01:54.476 --> 0:01:57.236 Yeah, you were never left alone. 0:01:57.876 --> 0:01:59.836 The New York City of that era was one of 0:01:59.836 --> 0:02:03.476 the most dangerous big cities in America. The subway was filthy, 0:02:03.836 --> 0:02:07.396 there was graffiti everywhere. There were two thousand, two hundred 0:02:07.396 --> 0:02:09.796 and sixty two murders in New York and eighteen ninety 0:02:10.076 --> 0:02:13.556 more than six a day. Were we personally at risk? 0:02:14.196 --> 0:02:16.556 I don't know, but it felt like crime was all 0:02:16.596 --> 0:02:17.436 around us. 0:02:18.316 --> 0:02:18.516 You know. 0:02:18.916 --> 0:02:21.436 Someone would always say, Hey, don't worry, I'm walking you home. 0:02:22.076 --> 0:02:23.516 We were never allowed to walk along. 0:02:23.636 --> 0:02:26.636 Yeah, even on it right, people would walk me home 0:02:26.836 --> 0:02:29.396 just because you didn't want to be by yourself. 0:02:29.716 --> 0:02:32.276 As a won when you went on on a date, 0:02:32.396 --> 0:02:35.476 even if it was a disaster, you had to walk. 0:02:35.756 --> 0:02:38.356 You had to walk the woman home, right, which is 0:02:38.396 --> 0:02:39.836 like so insanely awkward. 0:02:39.876 --> 0:02:45.996 You're like, we were, you know, independent women but once 0:02:46.116 --> 0:02:48.476 the sun went down, you never walked alone. 0:02:50.756 --> 0:02:53.476 Let's tell about how it gets better. I just remember 0:02:53.556 --> 0:02:56.756 that all of a sudden, all of the precautions seemed 0:02:56.756 --> 0:02:59.876 to go out the window right, and it's shoe. Statistically, 0:02:59.916 --> 0:03:03.036 we know by ninety seven or ninety eight the murder 0:03:03.076 --> 0:03:06.316 rate has dropped. I remember this. I had a bedroom 0:03:06.636 --> 0:03:09.836 when I was living on that in that walk up 0:03:09.836 --> 0:03:14.996 on Bank Street. My bedroom window overlooked the fire escape, 0:03:15.156 --> 0:03:17.796 and I had previously been too scared to open my 0:03:17.836 --> 0:03:20.716 window at night, And then I started to open my 0:03:20.756 --> 0:03:23.916 window at night, so that technically someone could have walked 0:03:23.996 --> 0:03:26.436 up down up to fire escape and walked in. But 0:03:26.516 --> 0:03:36.916 I was like, it's fine, now I can sleep. My 0:03:36.996 --> 0:03:40.396 name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my 0:03:40.476 --> 0:03:44.316 podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is part of 0:03:44.316 --> 0:03:47.556 a series introducing my new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, 0:03:47.956 --> 0:03:54.156 now available everywhere. And in this episode, I'm looking back 0:03:54.676 --> 0:03:57.396 that the question that got me started on tipping points 0:03:57.716 --> 0:04:01.636 twenty five years ago. How in the nineties did New 0:04:01.716 --> 0:04:06.516 York become one of the safest cities in America. In 0:04:06.556 --> 0:04:08.636 nineteen ninety six, I wrote an article for The New 0:04:08.676 --> 0:04:11.396 York and Mega trying to explain this puzzle. It was 0:04:11.436 --> 0:04:14.836 called The Tipping Point. That article led to my first book, 0:04:15.116 --> 0:04:18.916 called The Tipping Point, where I offered a more complete explanation. 0:04:19.596 --> 0:04:22.676 The success of The Tipping Point led to another book 0:04:22.956 --> 0:04:26.596 and another. I wouldn't be here today talking to you 0:04:26.836 --> 0:04:29.516 were it not for my obsession way back when about 0:04:29.516 --> 0:04:32.196 what happened to crime in New York in the nineteen nineties. 0:04:33.516 --> 0:04:35.636 And now I've written a sequel to that first book. 0:04:35.996 --> 0:04:39.156 Did I mention that it's at in bookstores everywhere. It's 0:04:39.196 --> 0:04:42.316 called Revenge of the Tipping Point. And in that spirit, 0:04:42.516 --> 0:04:46.116 I've decided to go back and conduct an audit of 0:04:46.236 --> 0:04:49.236 my conclusions from twenty five years ago, to look at 0:04:49.276 --> 0:04:53.196 my thirty something self in the eye and ask was 0:04:53.236 --> 0:05:01.316 I right Back in the nineties. I used to go 0:05:01.356 --> 0:05:03.916 to New York University's library all the time to look 0:05:03.956 --> 0:05:08.756 for ideas, bopes. A big squat redstone building on Washington 0:05:08.796 --> 0:05:12.396 Square in Greenwich Village. This was before Google, so I 0:05:12.556 --> 0:05:16.316 was my own search engine. I'd wander the stacks for hours, 0:05:17.596 --> 0:05:20.036 and one day I was on the fifth floor in 0:05:20.116 --> 0:05:23.356 the HM one Dot, a sixth aisle and I started 0:05:23.396 --> 0:05:26.356 leafing through the bank issues of the American Journal of 0:05:26.356 --> 0:05:30.116 Sociology from nineteen ninety one, and I found a paper 0:05:30.476 --> 0:05:35.956 written by a professor named Jonathan Crane entitled the Epidemic 0:05:36.076 --> 0:05:40.036 Theory of Ghettos and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and 0:05:40.076 --> 0:05:44.556 teenage Childbearing. A choice of words no one would use today. 0:05:45.316 --> 0:05:50.196 This is how it started. The word epidemic is commonly 0:05:50.276 --> 0:05:54.396 used to describe the high incidence of social problems in ghettos. 0:05:54.996 --> 0:05:58.836 The news is filled with feature stories on crack epidemics, 0:05:59.196 --> 0:06:04.436 epidemics of gang violence, and epidemics of teenaged childbearing. The 0:06:04.516 --> 0:06:08.396 term is used loosely in popular parlance, but turns out 0:06:08.676 --> 0:06:12.956 to be real remarkably apt. The word epidemic to Crane 0:06:13.236 --> 0:06:17.076 wasn't a metaphor, It was a literal description. His point 0:06:17.236 --> 0:06:19.956 was that if you look closely at how those problems spread, 0:06:20.116 --> 0:06:22.276 how and why they go up and down, it looks 0:06:22.636 --> 0:06:27.116 exactly like the way viruses spread, same rules, same patterns. 0:06:27.676 --> 0:06:30.796 And when I read that first paragraph, I thought, oh 0:06:30.836 --> 0:06:34.836 my god, this is exactly what happened in New York City. 0:06:35.076 --> 0:06:38.276 We had a real, live epidemic of crime. And what 0:06:38.436 --> 0:06:41.796 is the hallmark of an epidemic, a tipping point, the 0:06:41.876 --> 0:06:47.156 moment when everything changes all at once. That moment when 0:06:47.196 --> 0:06:49.796 I left my window open because I suddenly felt safe 0:06:50.356 --> 0:06:54.236 was our tipping point, and so front and center in 0:06:54.316 --> 0:06:57.076 my first book was a description of what I saw 0:06:57.116 --> 0:07:00.796 as the reason why New York's epidemic suddenly tipped the 0:07:00.836 --> 0:07:07.756 police department's commitment to broken windows. Policing broken windows was 0:07:07.796 --> 0:07:11.716 a theory that small rhymes or invitations for large crimes. 0:07:11.996 --> 0:07:14.316 That if you let people get away with little things, 0:07:14.636 --> 0:07:16.956 then you were signaling that it was okay to cross 0:07:16.996 --> 0:07:20.676 the line into bigger things, like serious acts of violence. 0:07:21.196 --> 0:07:23.516 And so what do you do? You don't let people 0:07:23.516 --> 0:07:26.876 get away with the little things. He was taking the 0:07:26.916 --> 0:07:30.796 concept of an epidemic and applying it to crime. Lawlessness 0:07:30.916 --> 0:07:33.916 wasn't random. It was something you could catch from those 0:07:33.956 --> 0:07:36.476 around you, the same way you can catch a cold 0:07:36.796 --> 0:07:39.636 from a warm, stuffy room full of four year olds. 0:07:40.036 --> 0:07:43.756 If somebody urinates in public, the person is telling you 0:07:44.236 --> 0:07:48.956 I got a big problem. This is what broken windows 0:07:48.956 --> 0:07:49.916 theory is all about. 0:07:50.196 --> 0:07:53.636 The biggest champion of this idea was Rudy Giulioni, the 0:07:53.676 --> 0:07:55.756 mayor of New York City at the time. Here he 0:07:55.876 --> 0:07:58.316 is at a press conference in the mid nineties, a 0:07:58.356 --> 0:08:01.356 few years into the Broken Windows experiment, where in a 0:08:01.396 --> 0:08:04.076 span of just a minute and a half he references 0:08:04.156 --> 0:08:06.516 public urination eight times. 0:08:07.036 --> 0:08:11.596 I mean, if some guy is urinated in public, we 0:08:11.676 --> 0:08:14.156 got a problem. Now you can do one of two things. 0:08:14.196 --> 0:08:16.556 You can ignore the problem and say, gee, I'm such 0:08:16.596 --> 0:08:19.756 a big, fuzzy headed liberal that I'm going to walk 0:08:19.796 --> 0:08:22.796 away from it, and you're gonna make believe they have 0:08:22.796 --> 0:08:25.316 no problem. That's New York City in the nineteen eighties. 0:08:25.476 --> 0:08:28.036 That's New York City with two thousand murders. That's New 0:08:28.116 --> 0:08:32.596 York City with five hundred thousand crimes. You have to 0:08:32.636 --> 0:08:35.636 pay attention to people urinating on the streets, and you 0:08:35.716 --> 0:08:39.476 have to get people to stop urinating on the streets. 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:44.556 That's moving towards civilization, that's moving toward decency. That's what 0:08:44.596 --> 0:08:47.356 I mean by a decent society that people want to 0:08:47.396 --> 0:08:50.876 invest in, people want their children to live in. You've 0:08:50.916 --> 0:08:53.156 got to pay attention to somebody urinating on the street. 0:08:53.276 --> 0:08:54.996 It may be a minor thing, it may be a 0:08:55.036 --> 0:08:58.516 serious thing, but you cannot ignore it. You have to 0:08:58.556 --> 0:09:01.796 deal with it. It is against the law to urinate 0:09:02.236 --> 0:09:02.836 in public. 0:09:05.556 --> 0:09:08.916 Giuliani was elected in nineteen ninety three and re elected 0:09:09.116 --> 0:09:12.396 in ninety seven by a huge margin. Under his watch, 0:09:12.676 --> 0:09:15.836 the city was revitalized. People who had fled for the 0:09:15.876 --> 0:09:19.876 suburbs came back. Huge parts of Brooklyn were gentrified. Central 0:09:19.916 --> 0:09:23.676 Park was cleaned up. I cannot tell you how gratifying 0:09:23.716 --> 0:09:25.516 it was to be a New Yorker in those years 0:09:25.756 --> 0:09:29.196 and finally get a mayor who said enough, you can't 0:09:29.276 --> 0:09:32.636 jump subway turnstiles and smoke dope on the corner and 0:09:32.676 --> 0:09:37.276 harassed pedestrians. But Giuliani wasn't just making an argument for civility, 0:09:37.876 --> 0:09:39.796 that it was more pleasant to live in a city 0:09:39.956 --> 0:09:42.476 where the streets were clean and the police were alert 0:09:42.516 --> 0:09:45.796 to every sign of disorder. He was making a more 0:09:45.916 --> 0:09:49.956 extravagant claim that arresting the guy urinating on the street 0:09:50.596 --> 0:09:54.196 was the reason why the murder rate dropped, and I 0:09:54.276 --> 0:10:02.076 believed him. Malcolm Gladwell is about to publish a book. 0:10:02.556 --> 0:10:04.996 Whenever it happens, huge things occur. 0:10:05.676 --> 0:10:08.476 About ten years ago, the journalist John Ronson did a 0:10:08.516 --> 0:10:11.236 retrospect dive on the tipping Point for a British program 0:10:11.316 --> 0:10:14.156 called The Culture Show, and he talked to a public 0:10:14.156 --> 0:10:16.876 defender in The Bronx named Kate Rubin No. 0:10:16.876 --> 0:10:18.436 I would go around and I would talk to people 0:10:18.436 --> 0:10:22.156 in New York City, and the liberal people progressive people 0:10:22.276 --> 0:10:24.356 would say, oh, well, you know, we've had this miracle 0:10:24.356 --> 0:10:26.116 in New York and some people would say, oh, yeah, 0:10:26.156 --> 0:10:28.236 Malcolm Gladwell's idea broken windows. 0:10:28.516 --> 0:10:30.636 I didn't watch any of this at the time, even 0:10:30.676 --> 0:10:33.356 though Ronson interviewed me for the segment too. But I 0:10:33.396 --> 0:10:35.836 found it while working on this episode, and it made 0:10:35.836 --> 0:10:38.756 me realize the claims I made in The Tipping Point 0:10:38.996 --> 0:10:41.076 had far more reach than I'd ever imagined. 0:10:41.476 --> 0:10:43.996 Some people knew that it wasn't his idea, but that 0:10:44.036 --> 0:10:45.996 he had popularized it. They'd read about it in The 0:10:46.036 --> 0:10:49.236 New Yorker and his book, The Tipping Point. I would 0:10:49.276 --> 0:10:52.316 never try to speak to what his intent was, but 0:10:52.516 --> 0:10:53.716 I think the impact that. 0:10:53.716 --> 0:10:59.956 He had was to serve as. 0:10:57.756 --> 0:11:04.276 Basically a marketing force for this idea. He truly popularized. 0:11:03.476 --> 0:11:18.756 It, so once again was right. On the afternoon of 0:11:18.756 --> 0:11:21.996 February twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, a young man 0:11:22.076 --> 0:11:25.396 named David Floyd left his apartment on Beach Avenue in 0:11:25.436 --> 0:11:28.716 the Bronx. As he walked down the pathway next to 0:11:28.756 --> 0:11:31.796 his building. He ran into the tenant to live downstairs, 0:11:32.156 --> 0:11:34.716 who said he'd locked himself out of his apartment. 0:11:35.396 --> 0:11:38.596 I was leaving my apartment to actually go to school. 0:11:39.556 --> 0:11:41.956 Heading to school, I had my book bag on, you know, 0:11:42.196 --> 0:11:45.356 everything that normal students do as they're going to school. 0:11:45.636 --> 0:11:49.156 Missus Floyd, speaking in an interview with the Civil Rights Group, 0:11:49.236 --> 0:11:53.516 raced forward. The landlord was Floyd's godmother, so Floyd went 0:11:53.556 --> 0:11:56.236 back inside to her apartment to get a ring of keys, 0:11:56.956 --> 0:11:58.956 and as he and the tenant tried to figure out 0:11:58.996 --> 0:12:01.796 which key worked in the door, three plane clothes police 0:12:01.796 --> 0:12:05.596 officers suddenly emerged. There have been reports of burglars in 0:12:05.596 --> 0:12:08.236 the neighborhood, and here were two young men trying to 0:12:08.236 --> 0:12:09.436 get into a locked up department. 0:12:09.956 --> 0:12:14.316 We were stopped. We were first. We were of course 0:12:14.396 --> 0:12:16.756 told to put our hands up to stay where we were. 0:12:17.236 --> 0:12:20.036 This was how the police put broken windows into practice. 0:12:20.596 --> 0:12:23.516 Don't let the little things pass you by. Be aggressive. 0:12:23.796 --> 0:12:27.076 Check for weapons, drugs. Maybe you find them, maybe you don't. 0:12:27.276 --> 0:12:29.476 But if you do that enough times, then young men 0:12:29.556 --> 0:12:32.716 leave their guns and drugs at home. Floyd had actually 0:12:32.716 --> 0:12:35.596 been stopped the previous April while walking down the street, 0:12:36.036 --> 0:12:38.876 followed by three officers in a van who jumped out 0:12:39.036 --> 0:12:40.156 and confronted him. 0:12:40.556 --> 0:12:46.796 And again, it's just the whole experience. It's humiliating, it's embarrassing, 0:12:47.236 --> 0:12:49.996 and really, you know, it doesn't matter what kind of 0:12:50.036 --> 0:12:53.036 person you are, how tough you are, whatever, it's a 0:12:53.076 --> 0:12:56.716 scary thing because you don't know what is going to 0:12:56.756 --> 0:12:58.876 happen with your life. You don't know what's going to 0:12:58.876 --> 0:13:04.636 happen with your freedom. 0:13:04.716 --> 0:13:08.156 Floyd becomes the face of a massive class action lawsuit 0:13:08.596 --> 0:13:12.956 Floyd the City of New York, challenging the NYPDS policy 0:13:13.196 --> 0:13:17.636 of stop and frisk, and in twenty thirteen, Floyd wins. 0:13:18.156 --> 0:13:21.476 In a shocking ruling, a federal judge said the NYPD's 0:13:21.596 --> 0:13:26.116 use of stopping frisk was unconstitutional, effectively ending the broken 0:13:26.156 --> 0:13:29.636 windows era in New York City policing. Yes, it still 0:13:29.636 --> 0:13:31.756 happens today, but not in the way that they did 0:13:31.876 --> 0:13:35.996 ten years ago, not even remotely close. It's no exaggeration 0:13:36.116 --> 0:13:39.476 to say that this was one of the most consequential 0:13:39.516 --> 0:13:41.756 court cases in the city's history. 0:13:42.476 --> 0:13:44.716 A lot of people at the time, and I think, 0:13:44.876 --> 0:13:47.196 you know, not without reason, said wow, this is going 0:13:47.276 --> 0:13:48.916 to compromise public safety. 0:13:49.316 --> 0:13:51.636 This is Aaron Chelfin, who's part of a group of 0:13:51.636 --> 0:13:55.796 criminologists who have devoted themselves to understanding what exactly happened 0:13:55.796 --> 0:13:56.276 in New York. 0:13:56.516 --> 0:13:58.436 The police are no longer going to be able to 0:13:58.476 --> 0:14:01.076 make a lot of stops and really show people that 0:14:01.116 --> 0:14:04.476 they were being proactive, so that might embolden more gun carrying, 0:14:04.516 --> 0:14:06.276 more violence, more homicide. 0:14:06.956 --> 0:14:09.356 When Cholfin says that at the time, a lot of 0:14:09.396 --> 0:14:12.156 people thought ending stop and frisk was going to lead 0:14:12.196 --> 0:14:16.156 to crime going back up, he means everyone, city government, 0:14:16.276 --> 0:14:19.316 the police force, pundits of every variety. That's what I 0:14:19.396 --> 0:14:22.756 thought too. What everyone was saying in effect was this, Yes, 0:14:23.156 --> 0:14:26.436 doing hundreds of thousands of police stops a year of 0:14:26.516 --> 0:14:29.156 young men like David Floyd, who maybe doing nothing more 0:14:29.196 --> 0:14:32.916 than helping out a friend is unfortunate, but being killed 0:14:33.276 --> 0:14:36.476 is a lot worse. And since this is what's keeping 0:14:36.516 --> 0:14:39.836 the crime rate down, we don't have a choice. That 0:14:40.156 --> 0:14:43.356 was the calculus. Even the judge in the Floyd case 0:14:43.556 --> 0:14:48.036 begins her ruling by making the same point I emphasize 0:14:48.076 --> 0:14:51.156 at the outset, as I have throughout the litigation, that 0:14:51.276 --> 0:14:54.516 this case is not about the effectiveness of stopping frisk 0:14:54.876 --> 0:14:59.316 in deterring or combating crime. This Court's mandate is solely 0:14:59.356 --> 0:15:04.076 to judge the constitutionality of police behavior, not its effectiveness 0:15:04.276 --> 0:15:08.396 as a law enforcement tool. She goes on many police 0:15:08.436 --> 0:15:14.076 practices maybe useful for fighting crime, preventive detention or coerced confessions, 0:15:14.076 --> 0:15:18.156 for example, but because they are unconstitutional, they cannot be 0:15:18.276 --> 0:15:23.396 used no matter how effective. She's basically saying, there's a 0:15:23.396 --> 0:15:25.236 good chance that crime is going to go back up 0:15:25.316 --> 0:15:28.876 because of my ruling. But the Constitution is the constitution. 0:15:29.956 --> 0:15:34.596 Even the people who hated broken windows thought that it worked, 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:39.316 but then the very thing that absolutely no one expected 0:15:39.356 --> 0:15:43.596 to happen happens. Crime falls. 0:15:44.156 --> 0:15:47.556 We ended stop question frisk in New York. We know 0:15:47.636 --> 0:15:49.916 that went down by ninety or ninety five percent, depending 0:15:49.916 --> 0:15:54.436 on which numbers you look at, and yet we had 0:15:54.436 --> 0:15:57.636 this incredible, incredible fifty percent to climb in homicide. 0:15:58.196 --> 0:16:01.756 In social science, a natural experiment is when the real 0:16:01.796 --> 0:16:04.156 world provides you with a clean way of measuring the 0:16:04.196 --> 0:16:08.356 truth or falsity of a given proposition. The Floyd decision 0:16:08.756 --> 0:16:12.756 was the perfect natural experiment for broken windows. All you 0:16:12.756 --> 0:16:15.716 have to do is compared before with after. 0:16:16.196 --> 0:16:19.036 The amazing thing about New York is that if you 0:16:19.076 --> 0:16:21.236 look at twenty ten, New York City had a banner 0:16:21.316 --> 0:16:22.476 year in terms of homicide. 0:16:22.476 --> 0:16:22.676 It had. 0:16:22.716 --> 0:16:25.036 It was one of the lowest homicide rates in forty 0:16:25.116 --> 0:16:27.476 years in the city's history in twenty ten, and you 0:16:27.476 --> 0:16:30.116 would have said, well, like, great progress, let's just keep 0:16:30.116 --> 0:16:33.076 it up. Let's keep up the good work. Incredibly, by 0:16:33.116 --> 0:16:36.636 twenty nineteen, the year before the pandemic right, homicides went 0:16:36.636 --> 0:16:39.316 down by fifty percent in New York compared to twenty ten. 0:16:39.476 --> 0:16:42.836 Between twenty ten and twenty nineteen, New York is unique 0:16:43.276 --> 0:16:45.996 in that it had another great homicide decline at a 0:16:46.036 --> 0:16:48.116 time when homicides were really flat nationally. 0:16:48.756 --> 0:16:53.036 This is hands down one of the strangest and craziest 0:16:53.236 --> 0:16:56.996 urban transformations ever. Just to give you a sense, if 0:16:57.116 --> 0:17:00.196 New York City's crime rate in nineteen ninety had just 0:17:00.276 --> 0:17:03.396 stayed the same, didn't change for the next thirty five years, 0:17:03.636 --> 0:17:07.836 the city would have had an additional sixty two thousand homicides, 0:17:08.276 --> 0:17:10.996 most of them in all likelihood young men of color. 0:17:11.836 --> 0:17:15.796 Sixty two thousand young men currently walking around New York 0:17:16.156 --> 0:17:16.996 would be dead. 0:17:17.716 --> 0:17:20.476 And by twenty nineteen, New York is almost as safe 0:17:20.476 --> 0:17:23.356 as Paris with respect to homicide rate. It's New York 0:17:23.436 --> 0:17:25.436 is closer to Paris than it is to other US cities, 0:17:25.476 --> 0:17:28.756 even like Boston, which is another safe city. Right, it's incredible. 0:17:31.996 --> 0:17:34.396 You know how those billionaires left New York City from 0:17:34.436 --> 0:17:37.236 Miami during the pandemic, saying they couldn't deal with the 0:17:37.276 --> 0:17:40.916 taxes and the crime. Well, the violent crime rate in 0:17:40.956 --> 0:17:44.236 New York City after that second wave is half that 0:17:44.356 --> 0:17:47.516 of Miami. If you're really worried about crime, you should 0:17:47.516 --> 0:17:50.796 be selling your waterfront home in Coral Gables before someone 0:17:50.876 --> 0:17:55.716 murders you and move somewhere much safer like the Bronx. 0:17:56.476 --> 0:18:00.876 Or here's another. JD. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, 0:18:01.076 --> 0:18:06.156 tweets this in twenty twenty one, serious question. I have 0:18:06.236 --> 0:18:07.956 to go to New York soon, and I'm trying to 0:18:07.956 --> 0:18:10.876 figure out where to stay. I've heard it's disgusting and 0:18:10.996 --> 0:18:14.236 violent there. But is it like Walking Dead Season one 0:18:14.836 --> 0:18:18.396 or season four? I know, I know there's a whole 0:18:18.436 --> 0:18:22.236 cottage industry of unearthing crazy things. J. D. Vance once said, 0:18:22.756 --> 0:18:26.636 but Vance is from just outside Cincinnati. The violent crime 0:18:26.716 --> 0:18:29.756 rate in Cincinnati at the exact moment he wrote that 0:18:29.796 --> 0:18:33.356 tweet was twice the violent crime rate in New York City. 0:18:33.996 --> 0:18:37.476 Serious question, Senator. I have to go to your hometown soon, 0:18:37.716 --> 0:18:40.076 and I'm trying to figure out where to stay because 0:18:40.076 --> 0:18:43.476 compared to where I come from, it's disgusting and violent there. 0:18:45.356 --> 0:18:49.396 But I digress back to Chalfin and the question at hand. 0:18:49.956 --> 0:18:52.156 And so you know, it does give you the sense 0:18:52.236 --> 0:18:54.636 that making loss and loss of these stops was not 0:18:54.756 --> 0:18:55.596 the key ingredient. 0:18:55.876 --> 0:18:59.796 It does, doesn't it. We conducted a natural experiment and 0:18:59.836 --> 0:19:04.956 the results are in. It wasn't broken windows, it wasn't 0:19:05.596 --> 0:19:06.396 stop and frisk. 0:19:07.356 --> 0:19:10.716 My administration will issue hundreds of millions of dollars in 0:19:10.796 --> 0:19:14.356 federal grants to reward cities and towns and return to 0:19:14.516 --> 0:19:18.956 proven crime fighting methods, including stop and frisk and broken 0:19:19.036 --> 0:19:22.876 windows policing. We did that with Rudy Giuliani was so successful. 0:19:24.156 --> 0:19:27.316 At three o'clock in the morning. Sometimes I lie awake 0:19:27.356 --> 0:19:30.876 and I think, oh God, did he read The Tipping 0:19:30.876 --> 0:19:49.716 Point too. I don't reread any of my books once 0:19:49.756 --> 0:19:53.076 I've written them, particularly ones from twenty five years ago, 0:19:53.276 --> 0:19:56.396 like the Tipping Point. I mean, why would I do? 0:19:56.476 --> 0:19:57.876 I want to wear the clothes I wore in the 0:19:57.956 --> 0:20:00.876 year two thousand, No, I don't do I even want 0:20:00.876 --> 0:20:05.476 to see pictures of myself from two thousand, not particularly so. 0:20:05.596 --> 0:20:08.236 I didn't reread The Tipping Point until I made the 0:20:08.236 --> 0:20:12.196 decision last year to revisit my first book on its 0:20:12.276 --> 0:20:16.556 silver anniversary. There were parts that I love. It felt 0:20:16.556 --> 0:20:20.916 like rediscovering some lost friend, Hush Puppies, Six Degrees of 0:20:20.956 --> 0:20:24.956 Lois Weisberg, Paul Revere's Ride. There are also parts that 0:20:25.076 --> 0:20:28.596 mystified me. Did I really write an entire chapter on 0:20:28.636 --> 0:20:33.356 the children's TV show Blues Clues? But the crime chapter 0:20:33.796 --> 0:20:36.436 was the only place where I said I would write 0:20:36.436 --> 0:20:41.916 that so differently today Today, if I were rewriting, I'd 0:20:41.916 --> 0:20:44.956 begin with the work of a sociologist in Chicago named 0:20:45.036 --> 0:20:46.316 Andrew Papachristos. 0:20:46.876 --> 0:20:50.156 People talk about gun violence as an epidemic or disease, 0:20:50.196 --> 0:20:52.516 and it is in many fronts, but really I wanted 0:20:52.516 --> 0:20:54.756 to take it seriously, like, ohay, if it's an epidemic, 0:20:55.556 --> 0:20:58.236 is it a bloodborne pathogen or is it an airborne pathogen? 0:20:58.276 --> 0:21:01.356 And actually, thank God, it's not an airborne pathogen. 0:21:01.596 --> 0:21:01.756 Right. 0:21:01.836 --> 0:21:03.876 You don't catch a bullet like you catch a cold. 0:21:04.196 --> 0:21:06.916 It's actually transmitted through behaviors. And I just try to 0:21:06.916 --> 0:21:10.476 figure out ways that science might kind of boost or 0:21:10.516 --> 0:21:11.956 amplify those insights. 0:21:12.196 --> 0:21:15.396 Papa Cristos took every single arrest over more than six 0:21:15.476 --> 0:21:19.796 years in Chicago, so hundreds of thousands of arrests, and 0:21:19.836 --> 0:21:22.076 he made something called a network map. 0:21:22.396 --> 0:21:24.436 All right, first you see it happens in groups, and 0:21:24.476 --> 0:21:27.516 then like, okay, what about individuals? All right, well does 0:21:27.556 --> 0:21:30.396 it concentrate? What about exposure? What about time? 0:21:33.036 --> 0:21:36.276 So if Andy and Malcolm are arrested together for shooting someone, 0:21:36.756 --> 0:21:38.956 then Andy and Malcolm are two dots on the map, 0:21:39.236 --> 0:21:42.476 connected by a line. And if Malcolm then is arrested 0:21:42.516 --> 0:21:46.836 with Joe as a line connecting Malcolm to Joe, Malcolm 0:21:46.836 --> 0:21:50.276 and Joe are one degree, or, to use Papa Cristos's 0:21:50.276 --> 0:21:55.476 favorite term, one handshake apart, Joe and Andy two handshakes apart. 0:21:56.156 --> 0:21:59.436 You do that for years and years of Chicago arrest data, 0:21:59.516 --> 0:22:01.956 and you get a truly enormous map. 0:22:02.596 --> 0:22:07.676 You have this very very large network, right, and then 0:22:07.676 --> 0:22:10.716 what you do is you sprinkle in the victimizations, which 0:22:10.756 --> 0:22:14.276 come from a separate source of data, right. They come 0:22:14.316 --> 0:22:17.676 from homicide records, they come from shooting files, police public health. 0:22:17.836 --> 0:22:20.076 He took the names of everyone who had been shot 0:22:20.156 --> 0:22:23.476 over the same period, and look to see how many 0:22:23.556 --> 0:22:26.996 of those names were in his network map. And what 0:22:27.076 --> 0:22:31.516 he found was the victims were already there, and they 0:22:31.556 --> 0:22:32.636 were clustered together. 0:22:33.476 --> 0:22:37.156 You just matched the data, and every place where there's 0:22:37.196 --> 0:22:41.076 a shooting, the victims bright red, for example. And then 0:22:41.076 --> 0:22:46.316 what you see is that these bright red dots all 0:22:46.396 --> 0:22:49.876 lingered together. I'll clump together, right like your kid took 0:22:49.876 --> 0:22:52.316 a handful of Christmas ornaments and like threw to the tree, 0:22:52.316 --> 0:22:53.516 and they're all on one spot. 0:22:53.916 --> 0:22:57.036 It looks just like the social maps epidemil just used 0:22:57.076 --> 0:22:59.676 to construct for the spread of HIV in the nineteen eighties. 0:23:00.196 --> 0:23:03.236 If someone in your social circle got infected with HIV, 0:23:03.756 --> 0:23:07.876 then your chances of becoming infected with HIV increased. In 0:23:07.916 --> 0:23:12.196 Papa Cristo's maps, the risk of contagion extended three degrees. 0:23:12.796 --> 0:23:15.636 If Malcolm gets shot, Andy is at risk, and so 0:23:15.796 --> 0:23:18.276 is Joe, and so are any people Andy and Joe 0:23:18.356 --> 0:23:19.116