Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence

Written by someone who knows what they’re talking about regarding why crime declined over 25 years and how to make more progress.

This is a Sociology Textbook as much as it is a Social Science Report of recent history. It seems accurate. Being an Old Fart, Yes, I remember Fort Apache Bronx and violence in the street hanging in the air like a foul smell over USA. Since the book stops at 2014, and we have changed presidents and races and political parties in power--unknown how accurate this book is in 2018.

It is hugely satisfying for me that Professor Patrick Sharkey’s important new book, “Uneasy Peace” concludes something that I have long suspected: in big cities across the country, violence has fallen as a result of the revitalization of public spaces by non-governmental organizations. Professor Sharkey, the Chair of the Sociology Department at NYU, argues that it has not been aggressive policing alone that produced the urban revolution of 1990’s, but rather the reestablishment of order in public spaces made a major contribution to the perception of public safety downtown.My sense has long been that our work in the revitalization of Bryant Park (with its sister BIDs, Grand Central Partnership and 34th Street Partnership), along with that of the Central Park Conservancy in Central Park, was at the forefront of changing perceptions about urban public space. What the implementation of the “Broken Windows” philosophy as articulated by George Kelling and William Bratton is really about is high quality maintenance and programming in public space (fixing the broken windows) along with the presence of private, unarmed security personnel, rather than the kind of aggressive policing that produced the deeply intrusive and out of proportion “stop and frisk” policy that came to an end with the return of Bratton as police commissioner under Mayor Bill De Blasio. In my view, that kind of aggressive police engagement with the community is both dysfunctional and a distortion of what “broken windows” is really about.Broken Windows thinking, along with the public space insights of William H. Whyte, were at the center of our work in midtown in the 90’s. I believe it also produced a remarkably positive result in the last ten years in downtown Jamaica, Queens. For example, in Jamaica, we took money that we had been using to hire a third-party security contractor to monitor our parking facilities to create our own, in-house, security program, the Jamaica Alliance. We used those funds to hire an outstanding retired New York City Police officer, James Vaccaro, along with a dozen community members. They were paid much more than minimum wage and received a full complement of benefits, including health insurance. Those individuals were well-trained by Jim to patrol Downtown Jamaica and report anti-social activity. Most seemed to love their jobs and were highly motivated by the possibility of making a contribution to their community. Many went on to even better positions – creating the possibility for hiring and training new members of the Jamaica Alliance team.These “guardians” or “advocates,” both terms used by Sharkey to describe what he thinks are key roles in decreasing urban violence, were unarmed and carried mobile phones on which they reported antisocial conditions which were conveyed to the local precinct. They not only patrolled the parking facilities owned and operated by Greater Jamaica Development Corporation’s parking affiliate, Jamaica First Parking, but they also walked between those lots and garages (and rather far afield in order to cover the entire Downtown), providing a positive, visible presence on the street all over the Downtown. I believe that their being unarmed is important (unlike the off-duty cops described by Sharkey as being employed by the Hollywood business improvement district) – because it conveys a stronger sense of the functioning of social order in the downtown (not requiring the use of firearms). Jamaica Alliance “ambassadors” provided directions to visitors, broke up the occasional fights among high school students and ultimately assisted in eliminating street homelessness in Downtown, Jamaica (along with Alliance staff member Thomas Crater, Jr. and outreach workers from service provider, Breaking Ground). I am convinced that the work of the Alliance was a major ingredient in the recent turn-around in Downtown Jamaica, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in new private investment. Professor Sharkey’s research and data seems to confirm that this kind of thing is happening is neighborhoods across the country.Sharkey’s other conclusions, which are original and important, are that the decline in urban violence is real and that the decline in violence has most benefited for the most disadvantaged segments of American society, particularly young African-American males. The book, which is lucidly written and a pleasure to read, parses data demonstrating the increased life expectancies of black men as a result of the reduction in urban violence over the last twenty-five years is a significant achievement.

This was a phenomenal read. It was well-written and concise. It places violence in a historical and contemporaneous perspective that I did not expect. I came away having learned quite a bit and having recommended it to others!

Important book on the social consequences of the global crime rate decline. Arrived promptly.

Patrick Sharkey has written an extraordinary book that confronts the popular narratives about urban crime, from both the Left and the Right, with the unshakable power of thoroughly researched and demonstrable facts. But he goes beyond his four key points concerning the fact of and reasons for the dramatic decline in urban violence. He also offers a hopeful if challenging vision of what might come next — if we are prepared to invest in our future. Let’s hope our policy-makers are paying attention and willing to substitute this informed and factual analysis for the fictional pablum that they have been spewing for decades.

I’m writing in late 2022, where the cited “Astonishing drop in violent crime” has proven to be as valid as Chamberlain’s “Peace in our Time.”

used for college, good read

Humanity