NYC cops did a work stop, yet crime dropped

>During the slowdown, police continued to respond to calls, and the arrest rate for major crimes (murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto) remained constant. But the arrest rate for non-major crime and narcotic offenses dropped, as did the number of stop-and-frisk events. It took until mid-January for things to begin to return to normal.

Wait, the police stopped arresting people, and fewer people got arrested? Am I missing something here?

This reminds me of when we turned off our logs, and recorded far fewer errors than usual.

The arrest rate for "minor crimes" (and narcotics) went down. That is not the same as proving that crime dropped.

For example, the arrest rate for car burglary in San Francisco is very low, yet streets everywhere are littered with auto glass chunks.

There’s a very unpopular reason for this which is that policing broken windows incites major crime.