[syndicate] \\ O R D N U N G \ Z E R O T O L E R A N C E

[claudia westermann]

>
>zero tolerance policy
>
>it never worked anywhere else but in New York -as far as I know - 
>and there are people very suspicious about the statistics given out 
>- i.e. the crime rates at the borders are not measured for example

regarding statistics and interpretation may see this as well


http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v2n1/currie.html

Reflections on Crime and Criminology at the Millenium *

Elliott Currie


Citation : Currie,    Elliott. 1999. "Reflections on Crime and 
Criminology at the    Millenium." Western Criminology Review 2(1). 
[Online]. Available:   



[...]

So one problem I have with the new "triumphalism" about crime is that 
I think that to some extent it represents a state of denial--in which 
we exaggerate our recent successes against serious crime and 
strategically ignore the implications of our comparative standing 
vis-a-vis other countries. But there's also what may be an even more 
crucial problem. Granting that there have been significant reductions 
in violence, the new triumphalism puts a highly misleading "spin" on 
the why of those declines--a spin which is not only misleading but 
dangerous, because it could lead us to adopt (or to continue) all the 
wrong anticrime policies while ignoring the things we really ought to 
be doing.


MISINTERPRETING DECLINES IN VIOLENCE

There are two facets of that misleading "spin": first, it exaggerates 
the role of some kinds of criminal justice strategies in accounting 
for the declines; second, it underestimates the role of other, social 
factors which are probably more important. Put those together, and 
you have the core of a new ideology about crime control that could 
lead us to policy mistakes that, once made, are very difficult to 
correct.

Let's take the exaggeration of the criminal justice effects first. As 
everyone here knows, two things in particular, in some combination, 
have often been given the bulk of the credit for our recent declines 
in violent crime. One is tough sentencing laws which have 
dramatically boosted incarceration rates; the other is tough 
policing, especially the so-called "zero tolerance" approach most 
famously, or notoriously, adopted in New York City. You can read 
about the supposed great effects of both of these in the media 
practically any day of the week, and not only in the United States, 
but all over the world.