NYPD: A Natural Experiment in the Making?
I saw a post on this blog about keeping a statistics diary, where you observe things in the news and see how statistics can apply. I really like this idea, it sort of fits under the scope of why I wanted to start this blog.
The tension between the NYPD and mayor of NYC is a huge and complex story which I won't get into here, but what interests me is this recent NY Times OpEd which notes the NYPD are writing less tickets, making fewer arrests and basically shunning their responsibilities as police officers. It makes me wonder- are we in the middle of some weird natural experiment in which the presence and effectiveness of the police in one of the busiest and biggest cities in the world is drastically reduced? What effect, if any, will this have on the crime rate? How could we measure this? How long would any change in the crime rate take to occur?
The "if any" part is what really interests me. It would be very interesting if we observed no real difference in the crime rate, despite "less" police. It has been 2 weeks now, and there hasn't been any major news story about the skyrocketing crime rate. NYC hasn't devolved into chaos. This sort of thing seems like it could be really important for cities all over the place. Could the crime rate be kept in check with less police? If so, that's a lot of tax payer money that could be avoided or reallocated elsewhere.
It's implied (I think) that the amount of crime in a city drives the number officers needed, the level of police presence (and the police department budget). How the crime rate reacts to less policing could give some insight to this. For example if the crime says the same, it may indicate some solid evidence that the relationship between crime rate and police may need to be re-examined.
It's way to early to tell what will happen but whatever happens will I think be interesting.