After being elected
Mayor of New York City in 1993 as a
Republican,
Rudy Giuliani hired Bratton as his
police commissioner to implement similar policies and practices throughout the city. Giuliani heavily subscribed to Kelling and Wilson's theories. Such policies emphasized addressing crimes that negatively affect
quality of life. In particular, Bratton directed the police to more strictly enforce laws against subway fare evasion,
public drinking,
public urination, and graffiti. He increased enforcement against "
squeegee men", those who aggressively demand payment at traffic stops for unsolicited car window cleanings. Bratton also revived the
New York City Cabaret Law, a previously dormant Prohibition era ban on dancing in unlicensed establishments. Throughout the late 1990s NYPD shut down many of the city's acclaimed night spots for illegal dancing.
According to a 2001 study of crime trends in New York City by Kelling and William Sousa, rates of both petty and serious crime fell significantly after the aforementioned policies were implemented. Furthermore, crime continued to decline for the following ten years. Such declines suggested that policies based on the Broken Windows Theory were
effective.
[21]
However, other studies do not find a
cause and effect relationship between the adoption of such policies and decreases in crime.
[22][23] The decrease may have been part of a broader trend across the United States. Other cities also experienced less crime, even though they had different police policies. Other factors, such as the 39% drop in New York City's
unemployment rate, could also explain the decrease reported by Kelling and Sousa.
[24]
A 2017 study found that when the New York Police Department (NYPD) stopped aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes in late 2014 and early 2015 that "civilian complaints of major crimes (such as burglary, felony assault and grand larceny) decreased during and shortly after sharp reductions in proactive policing. The results challenge prevailing scholarship as well as conventional wisdom on authority and legal compliance, as they imply that aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts."
[25]